Mars on the Cusp of Vegas
by Lancer47
Summary: Veronica Mars crossover with BtVS, in Las Vegas with an excess of alcohol. WIP
1. Chapter 1

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Feelancer47

Disclaimer: The usual, I don't own these shows and am not making money off this story.

Spoilers: Veronica Mars Season 1. Season 2 up to _'Look Who's Stalking'_ plus whatever I can guess about the rest of the season. (I don't read spoilers, so if you're current, you're OK) All of BtVS.

_Oh oh_, I thought, or I would have if I had been capable of coherent thought at the time. The problem was that I had a couple of out-of-sync pile-drivers pounding away in my skull. I raised my hand to massage my temples and my wrists brushed across my nipples. This suggested that I was at least partly naked and I couldn't, yet, remember getting undressed; and if I had gone to bed, where were my pajamas?

While I gently rubbed my head I had become aware of an intimate intrusion into my personal space, the feel of a bare ass pressed against my bare ass. Apparently I was even nakeder than I had first supposed and I wasn't alone. The other ass moved a little and I was able to analyze further: it was hairy and somewhat rough-skinned. _Oh good!_ I concluded, _a male ass. But whose?_ I slowly rolled over enough to identify my bed partner, who was also rolling over towards me.

A single brown eye stared at me. "Ah, hi?" I said uncertainly.

"Hi yourself," the stranger said.

"Did we go to a costume+ ball last night?" I asked.

"No, why?"

"Where's the rest of your pirate costume?" I asked, waving my hand towards his face.

"Oh that, well, no. It's a real eyepatch. I lost an eye in a construction accident a few years ago."

"Oh gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean..." I sputtered to stop.

He smiled at me and I kind of melted a little, "Don't worry about it ... uh, this is embarrassing but I don't know your name. Mine is Xander Harris. Xander's short for Alexander."

"Oh, hi Xander. I'm Veronica Mars." As I gazed at him, some of the previous night was coming back to me. Quite a lot was still hazy, but there were many, many hours of pure, unadulterated sex. In fact, I had to close my eyes for a bit to take in some of what we did during the night. Then I realized that I really needed to find a bathroom in the next few minutes, and swept the sheets back, got up and stood in the sunlight streaming in the window. I couldn't help but notice that Xander's gaze seemed locked on my body.

"Well Xander," I said, "normally it would embarrass me to walk around naked in front of someone I just met, but much of last night is very clear even while some is hazed. We're definitely not strangers anymore. And I just gotta ask, did you memorize the _Kama Sutra_?"

"No, more like the _Anyanka Sutra_."

"Oh. I don't think I ever heard of that one." As I dwelled on the details of last night, I consciously displayed myself. Really, there was little reason not to, we had done everything I had ever heard of and quite a few things that I had never heard of, or thought unlikely. I sort of lifted my arm and gazed down and suddenly noticed something foreign on my hand. "What the hell?" I asked.

Xander followed my line of sight and said, "Holy hell, you're married!"

"No, I'm not," I spit out the words, "I can't be." I was shook up. I looked at Xander in growing horror and noticed that he had a similar band on his hand. "Hell Xander, you're a fine one to talk." And I pointed to his hand.

"Shit!" he said as he jumped to his feet as if electrocuted. He looked closely at his finger and kind of shook his hand experimentally, as if he expected the ring to disappear or something. Then he noticed something on the wall above our bed: an official looking certificate had been taped up over our heads. He ripped it down and read it. He shockily handed it to me. It was a marriage certificate. We stared at each other, dismay writ large on our faces.

I said, "I am sorry Xander, but I unknowingly lied to you. I'm not Veronica Mars, I am Veronica Harris." Then I carefully set the marriage certificate down on a side table and went into the bathroom.

I pissed and cried for just a minute, then I resolved to face whatever was coming and I turned on the shower. Of course, this being Vegas it wasn't just a shower. This thing was like some kind of super-fantastic chamber of water pleasure, with multiple nozzles all over, controls for every purpose imaginable, as well as things I couldn't imagine. I got in after I figured out how to set it to the simplest setting. I closed my eyes and looked up, allowing the water to stream down my body. It felt good. Actually, I'm not sure if I had ever had a better morning feeling in my life. I mean, last night was _reaaallly_ good! Except for the marriage part. Dad was so gonna kill me!

I felt the water pressure change to a soft spring rain. The temperature decreased just a little then I was aware of Xander joining me. I turned in his arms, he was just the right height for me to rest my head on his shoulder. I liked the feel of his chest against my breasts, I held him tight. "Xander?" I asked, "I couldn't help but notice that you are scarred all over, like you're either some sort of special operations military guy or the clumsiest carpenter who ever lived. Do you have something to tell me?"

"Hmmmm, perhaps later. Right now, lets just let this crazy shower go through its paces."

"You know, I don't think I'm ready for another go since I'm sore all over, although in all the right places."

"Oh don't worry, my balls need a recharge, but I like cuddling with you."

"Eww! That's a crude remark!"

"Oh, sorry, it'll take me awhile to remember that you really aren't Anya."

"And who's this Anya?"

"My ex-fiancée. She was killed a few years ago."

"Oh, gosh, I put my foot in it again! Oh Xander, I don't mean to put you on the spot like that! Uh, how did it happen?" My infernal curiosity was poking up again. Except I did kind of wonder if I had put myself into the hands of yet another dangerous sociopath.

"She died in the Sunnydale Collapse, you remember that, don't you?"

"Yes, Sunnydale's the next town up the coast from Neptune, where I live! It was in all the papers for weeks."

"Neptune? You're from Neptune? I'm from Sunnydale, we're practically neighbors!"

Xander had settled down on the padded bench and I sat on his lap. In the meantime, the shower had cycled from early to late spring, with a long stop in autumn and a brief touch of winter (which just made us hug each other tighter) and was now well into summer. The water had stopped and warm air was blowing gently over and around us. I wondered how much a contraption like this cost and how soon I could afford it if it cost as much as I suspected. Finally, the doors opened by themselves and we slowly made our way out of the bathroom.

We lay on the bed, stretched out luxuriously. He was engaged in toweling my hair dry when the bedroom door was flung dramatically open. A redhead glanced in and said, "Hey Xand—oops! Goddess, I'm sorry!" and she slammed the door shut before I got a good look at her.

"Who was that?" I asked lazily.

"Oh, that was my friend Willow, we've know each other since we were little kids young enough to bath together. I think this is the first time since then that she's seen me _au naturel_. Too bad she probably didn't appreciate the look, she more than likely was focused on you."

"She's a lesbian?"

"Yup. As well as Jewish Wiccan."

"I didn't know you could be those things at the same time."

"Jewish Lesbian?" he grinned.

"No silly," I said as I hit him, "Wicca Jewish." We descended into a brief wrestling match. Then we lay back again, my head on his chest while he idly played with my hair.

"So if you're from Neptune, and your last name is, or was, Mars, does that mean your dad is the Sheriff?"

"Was the Sheriff, now he's private detective, and I work for him sometimes."

"Oh, well what's he gonna think of me?" Xander wondered.

"I don't know, but I think he'll kill me."

"Don't worry, I won't let him. But, what are going to do? Stick it out? Annul it? Try it and see? I vote for the last, by the way. I have issues, a past that makes me not want to dump you, even though this was apparently brought on by a sudden alcoholic incident."

_Oh oh_, I thought to myself, _what do I do now? Am I ready for this? "_I start college in the fall," I said, "I'm going to Hearst just outside of Neptune."

"Wait, you're just starting college? I thought you were at least twenty-one, you have to be to do almost anything at all in Las Vegas. It might be against the law to be younger here," he said frantically.

"Yeah, see, I'm eighteen. But I have a nice line in fake IDs."

"Eighteen! I'm nearly robbing the cradle! Although that does make a nice contrast from Anya, who was a, ah, much older woman. But still, I'll understand if you want out. I mean, you just graduated from High School! I wonder if the marriage is even legal here?"

"I think it is Xander, eighteen is an adult."

"Except in bars and most gambling halls—you can't even legally buy cigarettes in Nevada until you're twenty-one."

"But I'm pretty sure you can get married. You're not going to get out of it that easily, Xander Harris." _Why did I say it that way_, I wondered, _did I really want this?_

He smiled at me, cupped my right breast and leaned over to kiss me. _Oh yes_, I thought selfishly, _I want this, _as I felt my toes curl in response and noticed the heat rising in my belly.

The door opened again, (dammit!) but this time it was a blond who peered in. "No Will, your eyes didn't deceive you," she said over her shoulder, then she turned to us and asked, "you want some breakfast?"

"Hey Buffy, do you mind?" asked Xander, "Close the dammed door, and yes we want breakfast." The door closed and Buffy said through the door, "Room service or restaurant?"

"Make it restaurant," Xander shouted, "we'll be out in ten minutes."

I felt my hair, it was dry enough for all practical purposes. I smiled at Xander and got up. I wandered around the room picking up and sorting clothes into his and her piles. I sniffed them and asked Xander, "Do you suppose I might be able to borrow some clothes from your friends, I think they might fit me."

"Sure, and for the moment I think there might be some bathrobes in that closet over there."

Xander found some clean bluejeans and a dress shirt. This made it imperative that I find something other than my little lowcut black dress; I so did not want to appear in public looking like a cat in heat on the morning after, although that's exactly what I felt like.

I found a bathrobe in my size and followed Xand out into the sitting room. "Hi, uh Willow, right?" I asked, then stared in shock when she turned around. "Whoa! Trina! What are you doing here?"

She looked at me quizzically, "I'm Willow Rosenberg, not Trina." The others frowned at me.

"Well," I said as I studied her closely, "you sure look like Trina Echolls, but you don't really sound like her. And you don't dress like her. Is there a computer in here? I can show you a picture of her, she's an aspiring actress."

Willow handed me her laptop and I found a picture of Trina in about thirty seconds. Everybody stared.

"Geez," said Buffy, "that does look like you Willow. You suppose you have a twin?"

"It's possible," I said, "Trina was adopted by Aaron Echolls. But I found her biological father last year, he was the principal of Neptune High for practically forever."

"Aaron Echolls? The Hollywood murderer?"

"Yeah, Lily Kane, his victim, was my best friend and the sister of my boyfriend at the time."

"Holy Hecate!" exclaimed Willow, "your boyfriend was Duncan Kane? Son of Jake Kane of Kane Software?"

"Yep, one and the same. And now on the run from the law, probably holed up in South America."

"Oh no, the baby, it isn't yours, is it?"

"No, the mother was another friend of mine, who's now dead."

"Hell, are you sure your town isn't really a secret laboratory for a soap opera?"

I laughed, "When you compress the story into a few lines, it sounds that way. But really, these are events that took place over two years. It's a little outrageous, but not that unusual, especially for California."

The front door opened and yet another girl and a guy about my dad's age breezed in from the hall. The new girl gave Willow a kiss, Willow kissed her back. Guess Xander didn't lie about Willow and that made it crystal clear that Trina and Willow are two separate people. The new guy looked at me and said, "Oh, hello young lady, my name is Rupert Giles...?" leaving unspoken his question about my name.

"Hi, I'm Veronica Ma..., I mean Harris."

Giles raised his eyebrows and sent another unspoken question Xanderwards.

Xander scuffed his toes against the carpet and said, "Yes, we are married. And we've had a honeymoon."

I added, "It was only one night, but it was a very intense night."

"Xander!" said Mr. Giles, "don't you think you are rushing things? I suppose you two will excuse your rash and irresponsible behavior with excuses about alcoholic beverages. What time do you plan on getting the annulment?"

Honestly, that made me see red, and apparently Xander too.

"Giles, shut up! This is none of your business! Need I remind you that Ripper was much, much worse than me?" said Xander. I made a mental note to ask about this Ripper later.

Giles backed up in surprise and said, "It damn well could become our business, or have you forgotten why we are in Las Vegas?"

I guess Xander remembered something because he suddenly looked like he swallowed unsugared lemon juice.

"Why are all of you in Las Vegas?" I asked immediately, curiosity getting the better of me. There was no answer, but a lot of hemming and hawing. Every single one looked guilty of something. "You guys aren't planning on robbing a casino, are you?"

"No," said Giles emphatically, "of course not."

"Cuz if you are, I want in." I have no idea where that came from. There's no way I would really want a life of crime.

Xander looked at me with a grin, "No Veronica, we aren't criminals."

"Except," said Willow, "that time you and Cordelia stole a rocket launcher from the Army—that was a criminal offense."

"Eep?" I said, "Rocket launcher? Do I even want to know?

"It wasn't anything like what you might think, we work purely for the forces of good," Xander said reassuringly. And truly, the way he said, I was reassured, even though I was simultaneously doubtful.

"One mark of a good detective," I said to the group, "is the ability to hold mutually opposing hypotheses while waiting for more facts."

"Detective?" asked Buffy.

"Yes, my father is a private detective and I work for him, part-time."

"Are you licensed?" asked Giles.

"Not yet, in California it requires a five-year apprenticeship, and you can't start until you're eighteen, so I have about, uh, four years and eight months left until I get my license." Why did I blurt that out? I should have held my tongue, but Xander already new, so what the heck.

Xander's friends all looked at me, and then looked at Xander. Their expressions were priceless.

"Well Xander," said Willow, "you always did take things to extremes. And she's certainly an improvement on the bug teacher, the mummy, Cordelia, and Anya, so far anyway," with a withering glance towards me that I couldn't interpret, "and she seems very intelligent, she is very beautiful, and maybe she'll turn out to be committed to just causes and loyal to her friends. But, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FRICKIN' MIND!"

"HEY! Wait a minute, I'm standing right here!" I exclaimed forcefully, "I have a stake in this marriage too, you know."

"Yeah, and don't forget demon alcohol."

Demon alcohol? What the hell?

Xander shouted everyone down, "Alright guys, this is the way it is: Veronica and I probably would not have gotten married without the influence of good scotch. But what's done, is done. We seem compatible, and you know I have issues about marriage that makes me loath to give up without trying, this time." He put his arm around me and I immediately felt better, "Veronica and I are going to try it for awhile, see what happens."

"You mean like go on a date and see if you like each other?" asked Willow's friend who nobody had introduced to me, "thats what most people do before getting married."

"That sounds good, besides, we already know we're sexually compatible." _God_, I wondered, why am saying stuff like that? Maybe just to shock these people?

They all stared at me in frank appraisal, "Well," said Giles, "I see there's a certain resemblance to your last paramour. But do me a favor Veronica, please don't ever use the word 'orgasm' in my presence."

"Uh, I wouldn't dream of it," I said faintly, wondering yet again about the sanity of these people.

"And where are you going to live?" asked Willow.

Xander and I simultaneously said: "Neptune." "Cleveland."

We looked at each other in dismay and said, "What?" "What?"

--End of Chapter One--

--TBC--


	2. Chapter 2

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

**Chapter 2**

_Oh oh_, I thought, or I would have if I had been capable of coherent thought at the time. But allow me to rewind to two hours earlier:

I spent the day with Xander. We wandered, walked and talked, gambled a little, and generally got to know each other. The day went pretty fast. That evening Xander and I went by my room to grab Mac, who was mightily relieved when I came in; she had just realized that I hadn't been back since last night and was starting to panic. She switched instantly to dumbfounded and bewildered when I introduced Xander as my husband.

"Wow," she said, "while I was doing diligent prep-work to get ready to game the casino, you went out and got married. That's very uh, I don't know what call it, Ronie, do you care what Logan's gonna say? I guess no one cares what Duncan's gonna say, even if anyone can find him. But, hell, what's your dad gonna say?"

It took Xander only a few minutes to calm her down to the point where she admitted to being hungry, so the three of us trooped down the restaurant where we met the rest of the Xander's friends. Mac kept staring at us though, back and forth between Xander and me. It was a little nerve-wracking.

The food was great, the company wonderful, the conversation scintillating. If, from time to time, I thought myself inadequate when I noticed the servers in their extremely skimpy waitress uniforms and their enhanced breasts threatening to pop out of their tops, I looked at Xander who still seemed to be staring at me with his puppy-dog eye. _Maybe this could work, _I thought over and over.

After Mac got over her surprise at finding a near exact physical duplicate of Trina Echolls, she discovered that she and Willow had a great deal in common. When she finally got over my shiny new marital status, she and Will went off into a discussion of how much OS-X inherited from BSD (whatever that meant) while the rest of us talked about the last days of Sunnydale and politics in Neptune. It seems that everyone, except Kennedy, had actually met my dad while he was still Sheriff. It seems that Buffy was charged with murder the year before Lily's death, in a case involving protection rackets and organized crime. It was quite the story, but my bullshit alarm kept buzzing at a low level. There was definitely something they weren't telling us, and that included my Xander. Mind you, I realized that no two people could ever achieve complete transparency, (lord knows I have secrets that I hoped Xander would never learn), but there was something strange going on with Xander and his friends, and I intended to discover their secrets, sooner or later.

We walked out into the night after dinner to stroll along the strip. This place was kind of astonishing to me. As I took in the millions of multi-colored flashing lights and the constant appeals to the lowest forms of human behavior, I felt at home, this was my world, I was a shark that swam confidently through the detritus – damn, I drank too much wine with dinner, didn't I? You'd think I would have learned a lesson from the night before, but I guess I'm incorrigible.

I leaned against Xander as we wandered down the street. Willow and Mac trailed behind us, animatedly talking about Ubuntu internals (whatever those are), Buffy, Kennedy (someone finally introduced her to me), and Giles were half a block ahead of us.

"So Xander," I said, "are we going do the _Anyanka Sutra _again tonight?"

After a few moments of choking and coughing, he said, "We've only gotten through chapter one, there's

at least twenty four more chapters to go."

I was astonished, I truly didn't think there could be anything that we hadn't already done. Shows my inexperience, I guess. "In that case, I wonder if we should practice chapter one before adding something new?" Honestly, I was feeling a bit like a nervous virgin even though it had been a long time since I had been either. The difference between a night with Xander and a night with Logan (or Duncan!) was like night and day.

There was a loud crash from up ahead, followed by a bunch of thumps and bangs. That didn't sound good, but Xander seemed unaffected. "What's going on up there?" I asked uneasily.

"Oh, Buffy probably just surprised a feral cat or something," he replied.

"That doesn't sound at all like a cat to me Xander, I've spent countless hours on stakeouts, and that sounds like a fight, we'd better hurry up, they may need help." I peered into the night, but I couldn't see anyone in front us, apparently Buffy and the rest had gone around a corner. I grabbed Xander's hand and started to pull him along. I couldn't understand his lack of concern.

"Oh, stop worrying Veronica, Buffy doesn't need any help," he said.

"What? Buffy can't be fighting anyone, she's too small. It must be Mr. Giles. Let's hurry Xand," I said urgently, "it sounds like he's in trouble!" I struggled to get my Taser out of my purse while running, the stupid thing had somehow got tangled with my handcuffs.

As we got to the corner, I realized that I could no longer hear any fighting. So I stopped and peeked cautiously past the brick wall. I could see Giles and Kennedy just standing, they were watching Buffy brush dust off her leather pants. So I pulled Xander with me and walked up to them. "What were all those fighting sounds I heard?" I asked, looking around for some signs of a fight. There was some dust floating around, and a wooden stake was lying in the street for some reason. But I could see no other evidence.

Buffy said, "Oh, we heard something, too. But we never figured out were it was coming from. Do you have any ideas Giles?"

I turned to him and noticed out of the corner of my eye Kennedy was surreptitiously slipping what looked like another wood stake into her sleeve. _Hmmm_, I wondered, _what's that about?_

Giles said, "Your hearing must be better than mine, I didn't hear anything that could have come from nearby. Er, what's that in your hand Veronica?"

"Hmm? Oh, this, it's a Taser."

Xander looked at me and said, "I've always admired women who come armed." For some reason, Buffy grinned at that and shook her head in wry manner that suggested Xander's comment had a deeper meaning, but it was lost on me.

Buffy suddenly stiffened and shot a glance towards Kennedy. She flashed a finger at her and pointed to the right. I found out later that we were rushed by two large men from the alley behind me. I was knocked to the ground and hit my head against the concrete sidewalk. I wasn't knocked unconscious, but I sure wasn't in my right mind for a few minutes; everything was sort dreamlike and difficult to comprehend and I was just coherent enough to think '_oh oh'_. But I could hear people fighting, and I could see feet passing in front of me. In my illusory state I thought I saw Buffy and Kennedy leaping fantastically high and fighting off monsters, obviously proving that I was in a fugue state or something. When I my head cleared a few minutes later I was in Xander's arms, and there weren't any strangers around, conscious or otherwise, and Willow and Mac had finally caught up.

"Are you all right Veronica?" Xander asked, his voice heavy with worry.

"Sure, just peachy. Except for a massive headache and a cracked skull."

"Maybe we should get her to the hospital," said Willow as she checked me over and flashed a little light into my eyes.

"I doubt it's necessary," I said, "I just need to rest for a few minutes."

Willow said something under her breath that sounded like a foreign language, certainly nothing that I was familiar with, then she waved her right hand around a little then said, "I think she's fine, a little bed rest and she'll be good as new. We do need a band-aid for the cut on your head." Strangely enough, I really did feel suddenly better.

"What happened, anyway? Was I attacked?"

"Yes, we were mugged by some guys back in that alley," said Buffy pointing behind me, "you were knocked to the ground. The rest of us managed to scare them off, they didn't expect any resistance.

"Did you call the police?" I asked.

"No, we ran 'em off. They're gone," Buffy said breezily, as if driving off muggers was an everyday chore.

"Mr. Giles," I asked, "do you agree with this? I mean, this is a tourist town, if we complain to the police they will listen to us. True, they might not be able to do much, but the registered complaint along with any others will help them to build a case, albeit slowly."

"No no, Veronica, they scarpered off, no use getting officialdom involved, it's hardly worth bothering about," he said.

I guessed getting hit in the head was making me see things differently. I finally just lay back against Xander and said, "Will you help me get back to our room?"

He smiled at me and I knew everything would be alright. There's still that nagging doubt about what Xander and his friends aren't telling me, but I was trusting in Xander's basic, uh Xanderness, I guess. Does that make any sense to you? I hope so.

That night I slept very well. I woke up as the first rays of the morning sun poked beyond the curtains feeling refreshed and energetic. I watched Xander sleep. His quiet snore was somehow comforting. His eyepatch had slipped a little and I could see part of his horrific injury. It was discomfiting to say the least to contemplate the damage done to him. It made me want to hug him tightly and see if it made it any better for him. A few minutes later his breathing pattern changed and I realized that he was watching me watch him. He said, "Mornin' ma'am, how are you?" and he tipped an imaginary hat.

"Xander you goof, 'ma'am' indeed. Hey, let's try that magic shower again," I said enthusiastically. It turned out he was up for it. We made the most of that technological marvel. It took half an hour to cycle through the seasons and then we hopped back into bed, still exploring each other. I couldn't help but compare Xander to Logan and Duncan, I mean, that was the sum total of my experience, how could I not notice the difference's? I thought Logan was the very definition of worldly experience compared to Duncan, but in fact, I now knew he was a clumsy teenager groping in the dark, just like me. But where Logan had grabbed, Xander touched gently. Where Logan pinched, Xander stroked lightly but surely. Xander's fingertips fully engaged my nerve endings, without ever causing me discomfort. Somehow he knew exactly where to find the spots that caused me pleasure. And if I squeezed a little too hard here and too soft there, Xander was able to let me know without breaking our rhythm, truly an amazing feat.

We were eventually satiated, temporarily anyway, and our stomachs started to growl in chorus. A few phone calls later and Xander and I met Mac, Buffy, Willow, Kennedy and Giles for the breakfast buffet. Geez, I hadn't realized that there were fifty different ways cook eggs. I could used to this.

"How are you this morning Veronica?" asked Willow.

"Great. Headaches gone, I'm rested, full of energy, ready to gamble away one hundred dollars, with Xander's help of course."

"Wow," said Mac, "a hundred bucks. Aren't you're the last of the big spenders!"

"What did you budget Mac?"

"Oh, just a few thousand. But I'm gonna go count cards at the blackjack table, at least until they throw me out."

Kennedy said with a big yawn, "I'm bushed, I couldn't sleep last night. I'm gonna go catch a few z's this morning."

"Me too," said Willow. The she blushed bright red at everyone's knowing look and added, "sleep, I, er, we, just sleep!"

"Sure Will," said Xander, "you're gonna share a nice big bed with the ever so delectable Kennedy and you're just gonna sleep the morning away?"

I just had to speak up, "Why don't you see if Xander is willing to loan you his copy of the _Anyanka Sutra_."

Buffy, Kennedy and Willow collapsed into helpless laughter. Mr. Giles took off his glasses and furiously polished them, but that didn't stop him from laughing so hard he had to wipe tears away.

"Oh goddess above!" Willow convulsed happily, "what have you been telling her Xander?"

Xander looked chagrined. He said, "Oh, it's just a little misunderstanding, that's all."

I glared at Xander, "You've got some 'splainin' to do X-man!"

I kept the glare up, and apparently most everyone else at the table stared also for Xander finally said, "What, you mean now!"

Giles got up from the table and said, "I'm off to do some research. I shall leave you young people alone until noon." And he left with a chorus of 'bye's floating after him.

"OK Xander," said Buffy, "exactly what have you been telling Veronica?"

I interrupted before Xander could get a word in, "At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth again, without knowing why, again, I'll start. You see, the subject of the _Kama Sutra_ came up, how, I leave for your imagination, and Xander said it wasn't the _Kama Sutra_, it was the _Anyanka Sutra_. I hadn't heard of that, but I assumed he wasn't bullshitting me because of, well, just because."

"I see," said Buffy, eying Xander speculatively. "Well, did he mention Anya?"

"Yes," I replied, "wait, you mean Anya is short for Anyanka?" I was finally catching up. _Way to go Veronica_, I thought, g_et married and next thing you know you've forgotten how to reason deductively._

Xander sighed and said, "yes, Anya taught me a lot, and I took notes."

Willow's eyes got big as she repeated, "You took notes?" She looked very interested.

I looked at Xander and frowned. "You know, this is a little on the creepy side." I paused for a moment to judge his reaction and think about our hours of passion, and continued, "still, it's not a deal-breaker."

He broke into a big smile, got up and took my hand in his and said, "Come on, let's start chapter two!"

"Let's finish breakfast first, I have a feeling that we're going to need the fuel."

--- ---

I'm not gonna describe our morning to you. Let's just say that I found chapter two a real eye-opener. My view of sexual pleasure was expanded to points I didn't expect. And I just can't shut up about it, can I? Eventually, after another trip though the seasons, we all met for lunch. After lunch, we decided to do the tourist thing and we explored Las Vegas. It didn't take long for my hundred dollars to disappear. But Mac made nine thousand bucks and quit before anyone suspected she was card-counting. A good afternoon indeed.

The sun hadn't completely gone yet when the whole group of us were walking back to our hotel. There was a kind of tunnel thing going through a small local park. In the middle of that, something leaped out of the shadows and attacked me. A very ugly dude with fangs. This time I could see clearly when Buffy stabbed the guy with a stake. He disappeared in mid-bite. I screamed and fell. Then a woman, also with a set fangs, kicked me...

...My eyes opened, one at a time. I could see the moldy stained concrete of the tunnel. I felt like complete shit. My head was cradled in Xander's lap. I could see Willow bending down to me with her little flashlight. This was getting to be a habit, a very bad habit. Mac was panicky, she was very nervous, looking about like frantic bird, but the others seemed relaxed.

"Well," said Willow, "one of your pupils might be a little bigger than the other, I think. At least the bleeding has slowed. And you might need stitches on your neck. We'd better call an ambulance."

Then I passed out.

--End of Chapter Two--

--TBC--


	3. Chapter 3

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_Author's notes: I have certainly enjoyed reading the reviews for this story. I hadn't seen anyone else pair Veronica and Xander and it just seemed perfect to me, apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. I too think it would be wonderful to introduce Kendall/Priscilla as well several other VM characters, to the scoobies. However, I have to wait for the last two episodes of VM because I am not certain that Kendall will be available. But Weevil might show up. And of course, it will be very simple to bring Trina into the story, she's probably filming something in Las Vegas even as we speak. Faith may be needed, after all, there is a reason why the scooby gang is in Vegas (hinted at in chapter one). _

**Chapter 3**

_Oh oh_, I thought, or I would have if I had been capable of coherent thought at the time. I woke in a hospital bed. Although _woke_ might be putting it too strongly, _became somewhat aware of my surroundings_ was more accurate. It was very quiet except for the low hum of electronic gear and some vociferous whispering that I could just barely hear but managed to be highly irritating just the same. There were tubes going into my arms and another tube up under the covers. I frowned at the thought of some stranger inserting that tube into me. There were no tubes down my throat, that was a good thing. Mostly felt very, very tired. The loud whispering was getting to me so I tried to turn my head. Since I seemed to weigh a great deal more than usual, it wasn't easy, especially since everything I could see started wobbling. But I managed to turn far enough to see several people standing on the other side of a glass wall. I tried to focus to see who it was:

I immediately spotted Xander, he was angrily arguing with, oh crud, Keith Mars. It looked like dad was coming on all Sheriff-y to Xander and Buffy and they weren't taking it too well. Gosh, Mr. Giles was there too, seated next to Mac. I didn't see Willow and Kennedy, but I found out later that they were out in the hall, avoiding the argument and keeping watch for whatever might want to cause harm (And I wasn't yet ready to think about that _whatever_.) I turned back to the view of the ceiling and pressed the call button which someone with forethought had kindly placed under my hand.

A nurse bustled just a few moments later. That alone was enough to tell me that I must be in some sort of ICU, otherwise it would have taken half an hour. She asked me how I felt while she looked at various readouts and double checked the tubes and wires attached to me to make sure nothing was dislodged.

"Like I got run over by a truck," I said hoarsely, "I wonder if you would ask those people in the hall to stop arguing? It's bothering me."

"Sure thing honey. I'll put a stop to it or know the reason why." She turned and marched out to the waiting room. I could see she was a force of nature, not to be trifled with. I was glad she was on my side. Xander and dad turned simultaneously towards me. They were both kind of red and puffy looking. I guessed dad had been apprised of my new marriage and was deeply unhappy. I hoped his blood pressure was under control. I could see that I would have to do some serious peacemaking. I really wanted dad and Xander to get along, all it would take is a little time.

Oh yeah, was I attacked by vampires? WTF! Then I drifted off to sleep.

--- ---

Apparently it was the next day when I woke up again. This time in a semi-private room, (which I supposed meant that I would live) but with an audience. First, I checked myself: two tubes (one input and one output), I could wiggle my toes, I was thirsty, the aches were mostly gone, I had a monster sore throat, I had a large bandage on my neck, a small bandage on my head, no casts (thankfully), the IV was feeding me from at least three different bags, I guessed two must be meds of some kind, and, oh yeah, I could move around.

I could see Xander sitting on one side of my bed, with Buffy next to him. On the other side was dad. He was still unhappy, but he didn't look quite as steamed as yesterday. There was morning sunlight coming in the windows, so I tried to say _good morning_, but what came out was more like, "Goao orng'ich."

Xander and dad jumped to their respective feet. They both tried to bend over me and their heads hit with an audible '_clunk!'_, much to their mutual distress. I tried to laugh, but it sounded like incoherent noise. Probably a good thing, come to think of it, because they might have been a little hurt by my laughter. Didn't stop Buffy from laughing, though. Then I lifted my right hand and pointed to a water bottle with a plastic straw on the side table. It happened to be Xander's side of the bed, when Xand put the straw to my mouth and gently stroked my shoulder I could see dad getting angry again, I guessed at Xander's familiarity with me. But he controlled himself; I could read his body language, he realized that he was being petty. Gosh, I hoped that's what he thought.

A little water was all it took so I could talk again. Why did I want to talk again? There was nothing but unpleasant subjects as far as the eye could see.

"Hi dad, how are you?" I croaked out.

"Honey," he said, shaking his head, "what happened? Are you really married? Are you feeling better?"

"I was probably as surprised as you when I found out I was married," I said, holding Xander's hand in mine.

Dad interrupted me, "Trust me Veronica, I am way more surprised than you," he said with a heavy sigh. Apparently he just came to the realization that the marriage was real.

"So, have you two gotten to know each other?" I asked brightly.

Xander said, "Ah, no, not so much."

Dad chimed in with, "Not so you'd notice."

"Look dad," I said, "would you take Buffy out to get some coffee or something while I talk to Xander?"

"What? No, I want to stay here, right by your side."

"Please dad, I need to talk to my, uh, husband, alone." I wondered how long it would take before the phrase 'my husband' would roll off my tongue without causing a momentary disconnect.

Buffy got up and said, "Come on Sheriff, let's leave them alone for a bit. I guarantee you'll be welcome back, but let's let the lovebirds have their privacy, even if only for a few minutes."

Dad grumbled mightily, but finally allowed himself to be led out. I was beginning to realize that Buffy Summers was difficult to ignore. When the door hissed shut behind them, I turned to Xander and said, "Hi lover."

He smiled at me and asked, "Seriously, are you alright?" when I nodded, he bent down and kissed me, which kiss was returned as vigorously as I was able. When we came up for air I said, "So, vampires. Tell all."

He looked grim as he shook his head at me. "I was afraid you you'd seen too much. I wish you'd never found out, you don't know what this knowledge can do to you."

"We can't put shaving cream back in the can, Xan, you have to spill. Not only that, but I've heard it on good authority that being forewarned is to be forearmed."

He sighed deeply and told me, "Vampires are real, Buffy slays them, the rest of us help her." He proceeded to explain his world to me for the next twenty minutes. To say I was shocked at his life would be an extreme understatement. I was also proud of my new husband's contribution. Wow, I so did not expect to be thinking phrases like that the summer after graduating high school.

I said, "I'm going to need a demonstration from one of these Slayers, but until then I can accept this provisionally. Uh, how is Mac taking the new worldview? I assume she saw what I saw the other night."

"She didn't take it well at all, not at first anyway. Like you, we had to show her. After we took her hunting she wanted to know how to become a Slayer. It took a little work to make her understand that wouldn't happen, but now she's all enthusiastic about trying to help in the battle against the undead. I don't know how that's going to work out. If we can hire her for her computer skills it might help to keep her out of the field."

"Well," I said, "if you proved the existence of demon's to Mac's satisfaction, then I suppose I have to remove the 'provisional' part of my own acceptance."

That's when dad and Buffy got back. Xander flashed an A-OK sign to Buffy—he thought he had hid it from dad. But I think neither he nor Buffy realize just how sharp dad is because he certainly noticed—but he pretended not to. I sighed internally, I would hear about it later.

"So," dad asked, "where are you kids gonna live?'

Xander and I looked at each other, distressed, and I said, "Well, we don't know yet. I am going to Hearst College in the fall, that hasn't changed."

"And my work is in Cleveland, Ohio," said Xander.

"So," dad said with relief in his voice, "this is just a mistake, annulment is right around the corner, right?"

"NO!" Xander and I said simultaneously.

"We want to make this work," I said while Xander nodded approvingly.

"I don't really understand, I mean, you only met a couple of days ago. How could you be pledging lifelong commitment in such a short time?"

"You know," I said, "I don't think either of us understands it either. It just, I dunno, feels right."

"Feels right," dad repeated flatly, "well that's just great. Change your whole future on your gut feeling," he said looking deflated, "I'm not gonna change your mind, am I?"

"No," I said.

Xander added, "But if it makes you feel any better, Veronica and I agreed to try it for awhile and see how it works out."

"Oh that's nice, you spend the summer enjoying yourself in my daughter's bed then you can say 'Gee, I guess it's not gonna work.' Because if that's your plan, you'll have to answer to me."

I shook my head (gently) and said, "Listen to yourself dad, first you think I'm an idiot for doing this, then you're defending me against him running out on me at the end of the summer after you expressed a preference for it to be a summer fling. Which is it?"

"It's all three, Veronica, I'm your father, I can be inconsistent!"

--- ---

I was actually glad when visiting hours were over and the nurse kicked everyone out. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep. I hadn't thought to ask for anything to read, so I lay in the dark, thinking. The only thing I could think about, of course, was Xander's revelations about Slayers, demons, vampires, and magic. I can't say my thoughts were particularly productive, I kept thinking in circles, round and round with no end in sight.

Slowly I became aware that someone else was in the room. I looked over in surprise and saw Willow sitting quietly on the other bed, knitting, of all things. Honestly, what I felt in that moment was, fear, pure fear. Because that's when it hit me that magic was real.

"Willow!" I squeaked, "where did you come from?"

"I've been here most of the afternoon. I just used a little glamor to allow people to not notice my presence. It doesn't work with Buffy anymore, but no one else could see me."

"But Willow," I said unhappily, "that means you listened in on Xander and me."

"Oh no, Veronica, I promise you that I tuned almost all of that out. I respected your privacy. I would never invade Xander, or you, like that."

"But Willow, you did. You were here all afternoon and I didn't know."

"I was only listening when there where two or more visitors, beside me. But Veronica, I am here with a proposition for you."

"Oh, go ahead," I said, resigned to her incredible invasion.

"If you want, and only if you want and help with the process, I can remove your memory of the vampire attack and all the associated memories about demons and such."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, but it requires your full cooperation for it to work. I learned the hard way that I can't impose my will on others. You don't need to make up your mind right away. Although, the sooner the better, one way or another."

"I'll think on it. In the meantime, do something magical for me."

Willow smiled enigmatically at me and sat still, just staring. At first I didn't think anything was happening, then I noticed that she was gradually disappearing. First her extremities became invisible, then the rest of her became transparent, finally, nothing was left but her smile. Then, with a '_pop!'_ she was all gone. _How very Cheshire Cat of you Willow_, I thought. Then I worried whether or not she was actually gone, or just hiding behind a 'glamor', whatever that was. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, maybe to dream.

--- ---

The next day everybody I knew in Los Vegas arrived in my room by mid-morning. "Hi," I smiled at dad and kissed Xander. "They're going to let me go tomorrow. This morning they did more MRI scans and apparently everything will be fine. "The doctor sternly warned me against getting mugged for at least three months. He said another concussion on top of this one could be, in medical terms, nasty."

"There'll be no more muggings as long as I am around," Xander stated authoritatively, although I couldn't help but think he was around the last two times. Still, I certainly wasn't blaming him, and I did wonder why I was attacked first, both times. Hmm, I think I needed a private discussion with Buffy, and possibly Willow, oh heck, everyone except dad. Dad looked at Xander, started to say something, looked nonplussed, upset, and finally said nothing. I smiled at him as my hand found Xander's hand.

Most of the rest of the day we all sat around and tried to find something to talk about. Of course, as long as the ex-sheriff of Neptune was in the room, we didn't talk about creatures of the night. Although dad did try to do the detective thing, what with trying to get a handle on the attacks. I noticed that Buffy adroitly deflected any question that might lead to unwanted answers (unwanted on her part, not on dad's part), in fact, it was obvious to me that the whole gang (my gang, now) was skilled at not answering questions. Sigh, dad noticed, too.

He finally stopped asking leading questions and we all just talked for awhile. Dad about being a private detective, me about being a private detective's reception/assistant, Mr. Giles about archeology and ancient cultures, Xander about construction.

Dad asked, "So Buffy, what do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I'm an instructor at a Girl's School in Cleveland."

"Cleveland, all of you are from there, right? Do all of you work at the School?"

"Yes," said Giles, "except I'm based in London."

"And Xander, what do you do."

"I'm the Facilities Manager."

"So you're a janitor or something?" asked dad, a little shirtily I thought.

"Well, sometimes. But I'm in charge of the physical structures at the schools in Cleveland, Los Angeles and London. And I'm scouting for someplace suitable in New York."

I think Dad was impressed. "So you really do management work, you don't push a broom."

"I've been known to push a broom when needed, but not as a general rule. Mostly I hire people who know what to do and fire them if they don't if they don't do it."

"Miss Rosenberg? What do you do."

"I teach meditation, yoga and Mysticism Through the Ages."

"Oh, how interesting. And your role in all this Mr. Giles?"

"I oversee the madhouse, I suppose you'd call me the CEO, although that title is grander than the job."

"And Buffy, what do you instruct?"

"I teach unarmed combat."

Dad just about choked on his coffee.

"And edged weapons," she added.

Dad's eyebrows went up. It looked like he was waiting for her to add artillery, tactics and night invasions, but she said nothing else. He finally blurted out, "Seriously?"

Giles answered for her, "Yes Mr. Mars, seriously. I believe that in order for young women to be well rounded, they should know something about how to protect themselves."

Dad could only nod in agreement, since he had said essentially the same thing to me. But I've always had the feeling that he didn't really believe it. "Why not guns?"

"I'm not very good with guns," said Buffy, "I prefer to use muscle."

Dad looked her over carefully, from her stylish boots, blue jeans, knit top, coiffed hair, designer jacket, understated necklace, she was thin and blond—the very image of a young, successful California woman. She didn't look anything at all like an unarmed combat instructor. Dad didn't know what to say, I think he wondered if he was being played.

After that the conversation became intermittent and dull.

An hour later some kind of cop showed up. "Hi," he said, "I'm Nick Stokes from the Las Vegas Crime Lab. I need to ask Miss Veronica Mars a few questions. Would the rest of you mind waiting outside? It'll just take a few minutes."

Predictably, dad and Giles both objected and wanted to stay. But I had a sinking feeling I knew what he wanted, so I said, "Go on guys, I'll be alright."

When we had a little privacy (I wondered if Willow managed to stay behind, I wouldn't have minded if she did, but I wished I knew) Nick Stokes sat down and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Much less concussed today, thanks."

"Since you are the victim, I don't really intend to jamb you up. I came to return your purse." He handed it to me, a little worse for the wear. I inspected it sadly, it looked like it had been drop kicked into a concrete wall.

"I naturally went through it, since it was in evidence at a crime scene, and I found your Taser and handcuffs. Both legal in Nevada, lucky you. But I also found two driver's licenses, both from the State of California, both in your name; a lot less legal, Miss Mars. One was obviously not yours, since it put your age at twenty-one. As it happens, it fell into an incinerator, by accident, before I could determine that it was a fake."

I breathed a sigh of relief, but said nothing. I was still tense.

"I can tell the difference between a hardened criminal and a teenager out to have a little fun, but the Sheriff of this fine county, can't. But you should be alright unless someone decides to make trouble for you, say if a complaint were filed about your underage drinking, or if Casino Security discovered you gambling, for instance. Then you could end up in jail because the casino's are very twitchy about teenagers. They could lose their license over it, if things went far enough. Also, Judges feel that false IDs are a serious offense. Mind you, you'd probably get a suspended sentence plus community service, but you'd have a record which would haunt you for years to come. That's all I have to say on the matter, except be sure to tell your friend Miss MacKenzie to stay away from the gaming rooms and she'd better not have any ID that doesn't show her correct age. Now, do you have anything further to say about your attackers?"

"I wish I did," I said as genuinely as I could, "it was early evening, but in the tunnel it was quite dark except for light coming in from the ends that made their eyes flash; heck, they could've been vampires for all I know. Weren't the others able to help?"

He grinned at me and said, "Funny. No, all the descriptions were awfully vague. It was dark in there, in fact, several lights had been broken by someone, presumably the perpetrators. Well, I wish I could tell that we had a lead, but we don't. But we will keep looking."

"How hard will you be looking?" I asked.

"Hmmm, well, you know, not that hard. No one's dead, your injury is clearing up fine, and nothing is missing. I'll be honest with you, this isn't a high priority crime and our resources are finite. Probably better for you if we don't look too close."

"Yes, thank you for trying," I said, as he got up to leave, "bye," I added cheerily.

He smiled at me and left.

--- ---

That evening dad managed some time with me alone. Unfortunately, he wasn't in a particularly good mood at first, all but accusing me of conspiracy to do something illegal.

"Dad," I said with my eyes blazing in false anger, "I don't know what your talking about!"

"Veronica, I'm your father. I know you well, and I know when you're trying to put one over on me. You and your new friends, including your brand new husband," he snorted, "are mixed up in something. Frankly, I don't want to know about it. You didn't know much about Sunnydale, before it sank into the earth, but it was not a good place to grow up. I was offered a job there, the new Mayor of Sunnydale interviewed me for the position of Chief of Police. I didn't like him much, and when I looked up the crime statistics I didn't like Sunnydale, so I turned him down. And I've been told that the new mayor was a huge improvement over the old one."

"It's a good thing you turned him down, huh, it wouldn't have been fun to watch our house get swallowed up."

Dad nodded and said, "Yeah, but when I was Sheriff, I did occasionally have business there. And your new friends did some kind vigilante thing, I think. Maybe they're completely on the up-and-up, and maybe not, just be careful. I know, I know, cautioning you to be careful is probably a waste of time. I suppose I should be grateful that you may produce grandkids before you come up against a situation that kills you."

"Gee dad, supportive much?"

He smiled at me, "You're good Veronica, you have some experience with the worst of human behavior, and you've nearly died. This gives you a better perspective than most kids your age, but, you're still only eighteen. I know that seems old and wise to you, but trust me Veronica, you're not as worldly as you think. But you are on your own now."

"Are you," I asked with a catch in my voice, "cutting me off?"

"No, of course not. But you have chosen to leave the nest before you have to. You know you can always come to me for anything at all, at any time of the day or night."

"Oh, good."

"I have to drive back to Neptune tonight, I have clients that are demanding my attention, and my receptionist/assistant is on her honeymoon."

I grinned at him.

"So I need to put in some overtime. The doctor tells me you are recovering nicely, but you need to listen to his directions. You are supposed to take it easy for a few months. I don't suppose you would actually take anyone's advice, but you should take this advice."

We talked until Xander showed up, then dad shook his hand, congratulated him and hoped things worked out well. Then he had to go.

--- ---

Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles and I had a conference. After we cleared the air about the demonic underworld, and I made certain we were all on the same page, I said, "The thing that still bugs me, the thing I can't let go of, is why was I attacked? Both attacks, both times, they took me out first. Any ideas here?"

Giles looked thoughtful and said, "Perhaps they thought you were the most dangerous."

Buffy said, "This isn't my usual territory, it's entirely reasonable that the local vampires wouldn't know the Slayer was in town."

Willow asked, "Could this have something to do enemies of yours, Veronica? I know you've been in the news recently, and I did a background check, you've been in the news before. There are people who don't like you and some of them aren't in prison. Can you think of anyone who might know about vampires? Know enough to contract a killing?"

_Oh oh_, I thought, coherently this time.

--End of Chapter Three--

--TBC--

_Next Chapter: The Irish Connection. This chapter was heavy on conversation and light on action. I intend to have more action in future chapters, but almost any VM story is pretty much guaranteed to have lots of dialog. _


	4. Chapter 4

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_Author's notes: I had to wait until the finale to make substantial progress on the plot, since it was very difficult to know which characters would be free, or alive. For instance, I had to remove Weevil, although I might be able to work an interview with him in his jail cell. I had thought about working Aaron into the tale, guess that's not going to happen now. I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out a way to account for what might have happened to Keith and Kendall, but I finally decided to not worry about it and just make something up. When the third season starts, this story will instantly become AU (in all probability), and there's little to be done about it._

_Thanks again for the reviews, except I got my first critical review—I'm sure it's good for me. _

**Chapter 4**

_The Irish Connection_

--November 2005--

_Oh oh, _ I thought, _so this is what it must feel like just before getting tortured or raped, _as Liam Fitzpatrick leaned over me with his tattoo gun, _I'd just as soon skip this part, thanks_. Still, terrified though I was, I could only think of one thing: no matter what he did to me, I would pay him back, with interest. Unless he murdered me, but then dad would kill him so I'd still get even. So while he held me down with his left hand around my neck and the buzzing tattoo needle waving in front of my face, I slipped a type T-16 voice-activated frequency-shifting transmitter under the bottom edge of the pool table. Sigh, there was $260.00 I'd never get back, I hoped it would be worth it. I carefully pressed it in place with just enough force to activate the glue pellet, hoping that I wasn't trying to stick it to a piece of old chewing gum or something.

Liam looked straight into my eyes, asking me something over and over but I wasn't listening to him. I thought at him, _I'm gonna git you,_ but it didn't look like he was getting the message. Didn't matter, I knew I'd deliver it eventually. While he was mouthing off, I had twisted around enough to get my knee in position to try to smash his balls. I wasn't at all sure I be able to do it, what with Liam weighing twice as much as me, but I wasn't gonna sit back and let him have his way without a struggle.

But just then Logan burst in and asked, "Say, can any of you tell me the address of this place so I can tell the 9-1-1 operator where to send the cops?" He held his cell phone up so everyone could see it.

I had just enough time to double-check my bug placement with a fingertip. Then the Logan and Liam show progressed to gun-waving and Liam finally released me.

I counted my steps during our hasty retreat and at about fifty feet I stopped just long enough to plant a receiver/recorder/cell phone. Mac had taken apart a cell phone (purchased with cash with one hundred hours of prepaid time) and reworked it with a relay and a couple of little computer chips into a neat little self-contained package, a half inch thick by two by four inches. It was completely featureless on the outside with no clue as to its function. It was easy to hide under a pile of trash in back of the River Styx. Now, all I had to do was call it and it would download a days conversation into my computer in a few minutes. Since it was a phone, I didn't even have to be in the same neighborhood to retrieve the information. Ain't technology grand? The only thing that was less than perfect were during those few minutes of phone time, it wouldn't simultaneously record and transmit. Mac assured me that her next model would. When the battery ran down I could just drive by and drop another one somewhere on the property. At least the cell/transmitter/receiver was fairly cheap, it just took standard parts from Radio Shack, and a couple of hours of Mac's time.

When I piled into Logan's truck, I started to shake and I felt like puking—I could still feel Liam's hands crawling on my body. My repressed fear was catching up to me, I'm afraid I took it out on Logan; what with complaining about him carrying a weapon. But I was so shook up that I had stopped thinking logically. Liam Fitzpatrick was a sociopath, and he scared the crap out of me.

--- ---

I listened in that night on the 'action' at the River Styx just after my dramatic escape. Liam was awfully upset at me and Logan.

_Liam Fitzpatrick: "What the FUCK! Who let that son of a whore in here!"_

_Danny Boyd: "He musta followed us."_

_Liam: "And why the HELL'D you bring that little bitch here in the first place?"_

_Danny: "I thought she was a cute bit of fluff and I wanted ta show her my where I got stabbed, you remember, when the doc ..."_

_Liam: "Yeah, you stupid fuck, always thinkin' with your dick! That was the old sheriff's daughter you dumb mick! You know, the one that was good at lockin' us up! SHIT! It's all arseways! How could this happen!"_

_Molly: "Damn it Liam, keep yer Alan Wickers on. What'd she see? What'd she hear that could hurt us?"_

_Liam: "You dumb bitch, didn't you listen to her? Her story made no sense at all. That means it was a cover—she musta figured out that Doc Levine is with us. She'll put it all together and next thing you know even a Sheriff as stupid as Lamb might figure our angle."_

_Danny: "So what? She's just a high school kid."_

_Liam: "A bigger bollox than you never put his arms through a coat!"_

_Molly: "Although I wouldn't mind tanglin' the sheets with Logan Echolls."_

_Liam: "Ya little tart you, yer dense as bottled shit. He's no Duncan Kane, ye'll not be gittin' yer hands on any of his bread-n-butter!"_

_Liam: "Whaya looking at? Ya gonna curse me now ya twit? No, I din't think so."_

It went on in that vein for a long time. I was getting a headache trying to translate the Irish slang, made especially difficult because I finally figured out they didn't always use it right, but most of it was nothing more than ill-tempered posturing. Plus it wasn't easy to figure what Liam was saying since I wasn't certain how some of those words were spelled and he tended to slur his speech. After hours of that I wasn't any better off except I still needed to study History.

I fell asleep in the middle of an account of Oliver Cromwell attacking some random castles. I dreamed of waving fields of flowers (lilies, of course) and then suddenly, at three in the morning, I woke up. I sat up in shock as one of Liam's sentences replayed itself in my head, '_she musta figured out that Doc Levine is with us.' _Doctor Alan Levine? The Kane's family doctor? And that comment about Duncan? Could the Kanes have been mixed up with the Fitzpatricks? Why? I lay back and thought about it until dawn.

--July 2006--

Finally, I was out of the hospital. Damn it felt good to get back to the Xander's luxury suite. _Our suite_, I corrected myself.

"Hey," asked Xander, "you hungry? Ready to grab a bite and try the roulette wheel?"

I replied, "Ah, my twenty-one-year ID is no longer an option in this town, so, no gambling and no alcohol in public places."

"So that's what that crime scene guy wanted with you."

I sighed, "Yeah, and besides, maybe I should put that little experiment aside, I'm pretty sure I've determined my tolerance for booze."

"Heh, and it's not very high, either. Still, there's always room service."

"Besides," I added softly, "I don't want to repeat my mother's ways."

"Your mother?" Xander questioned.

"Yeah, she was a drunk. It made for several years of unhappiness." That was putting it mildly.

"Oh. When did she die?"

"As far as I know, she's still alive. But she's dead to me." _No shit._

"Actually," said Xander, "I have more experience than I care to admit with drunk relatives, so, why don't we sign a pact signifying our determination to remain sober. Especially important after our rocky and alcohol fueled start."

We looked at each other with alarm, both of us wondering if this marriage was destined to be doomed after all. Xander turned and walked to the dresser. He pulled a sheet of paper off a tablet and fiddled about, wrote on it and eventually he put his pen down and folded it into a paper airplane, which he flew in my direction. I caught it, unfolded it, read it, and signed it under his signature. Both our signatures were unreadable by anyone who wasn't us, so I refolded it and walked to the sliding glass doors to our little private porch. Xander joined me as a flew the little plane off the balcony. We watched in silence as it swooped in circles and disappeared into the distance. I actually felt a sense of relief, maybe this would work. The bright Nevada sun started to have its effect on us and we turned back to the cool comfort of our room, sliding the door shut behind us.

"You know," I said slowly, "it's been three days since I've had a really good shower."

"Yeah?" Xander said, his face lighting up, "I can help with those hard to reach spots, unless you'd rather get someone else."

"I'm told the concierge in places like this can get you experts in just about any specialty." I kicked my shoes off.

"Sure, but I'm not paying for it."

"Oh, well," I said as I let my jeans drop to the floor and started to wriggle out of my panties, "maybe that nice doctor would like to check up on his work?"

"Nah, docs don't make house calls anymore," he said. I could see he was getting worked up.

I unbuttoned my blouse and said, "That crime scene guy, Nick Stokes, he might want to check me for evidence."

"That case is closed." He was breathing deeply now.

I dropped my bra to the floor, stretched my arms towards the ceiling, and said, "Then I guess you'll have to do it." He did, thoroughly.

--- ---

Later that afternoon after slipping on jeans and T-shirt, I yawned and stretched as I walked out of the bedroom into the living area of the suite. I suddenly realized that there were two new sets of eyes following me. I snapped my jaw shut and said, "Hi, I'm Veronica."

"Hi," said a young woman with long brown hair, "Dawn Summers."

"Oh, you must be Buffy's sister, the one going to Oxford."

"Yep, that's me, on vacation from teabag central."

The other one said, "How ya doin', I'm Faith. We understand that you and Xander have tied the knot."

"Yeah," said Dawn, "how'd that happen? Xander never mentioned you before. And you're eight years younger than the Xand man. I can't believe he he married a girl three years younger than me."

"Well, it was kinda sudden," I said, "and it's possible that he thought I was your age, since that's what I told him at the time."

Faith laughed, "I guess so. I don't know if anyone else around here has mentioned this to you, but if you treat him wrong, you could get beat half to death by a mob of angry girls."

I looked at her in some surprise, "Not in those words, no."

Dawn said, "Hey, don't worry, Faiths just a little put out that someone came out of left field to snap him up. Want some coffee?"

"Oh, you're that Faith," I said with sudden understanding, "you're the other senior Slayer."

Both women raised their eyebrows at me, and Dawn said, "You been invited into the club already? Or did you know before?"

"I was introduced by getting attacked by a vampire. This stuff was a huge surprise to me. It's kinda cool about it being girls that kick ass though."

"So you know that Xander works at our Slayer Academy, and even though he isn't officially a teacher, he still teaches sometimes. The younger Slayers look up to him, and all of us are very protective of him. Just so you know."

"Uh yeah, you know I don't find it surprising."

Dawn was still musing about my age, "Eight years younger is a lot better than 1200 years older."

"1200 years! What the heck are talking about!" I exclaimed with disbelief.

"Oh, didn't you know?" Faith asked sweetly, "didn't anyone tell you about Anyanka?"

"Sure, she was Xander's great love, died about four years ago."

"More accurately, she was killed in battle. She died a human, and had been born human, but in between was a vengeance demon, for a very long time."

I sat down suddenly. "How the hell am I supposed to compete with the memory of a 1200 year old woman?"

"Actually," said Faith, "most of us wondered what he saw in her."

"Yeah," Dawn agreed, "Xander has the worst taste in women, ever,"

"Well thanks," I said, "that just makes me feel all special."

Faith said while ticking her fingers, "Yeah: evil bug woman, evil mummy princess, evil cheerleader girl, and evil demon girl. Did I miss any?"

"Yeah," said Dawn, "evil slayer girl," while looking at Faith.

"Huh?" I grunted, while Faith shot a daggered look towards Dawn.

Dawn looked at me and belatedly realized she was being less than tactful. She said, "Oh, I'm sorry, its just that we're really surprised by this marriage. The truth is, Buffy and Willow, and me too now that I have met you, think you'll be good for him, better than anyone that came before, and certainly better than Anya, but please don't tell him I said that."

"Don't tell who you said what?" Xander asked from behind me.

"Xand-man!" squealed Dawn as she jumped up and hugged my husband, a little too enthusiastically for my comfort.

"Hey Dawny," he said, "how ya' doin'? How's jolly olde England? Did you get my birthday present?" He looked at Faith and smiled, Hi Faith, Afghanistan go well?"

_Shit_! I thought to myself, _Xander has history with these girls_. Then I looked at myself with a certain amount of astonishment, _jealous much?_ I wasn't aware that those emotions could be so strong. _Oh, wait_, I thought, had I already forgotten how I felt when I found Hannah Griffith in Logan's bed back in June? Still, this was baggage, not betrayal. So I forced myself to calm down and be civil. _Wait, he got it on with Faith? So not only do I have to compete with millennial woman, but with a Slayer, too? This gets better and better._

I put my arm around Xander's waist and whispered into his ear, "So how long were you and Faith an item?"

"Uh," he said, "a little less than ten minutes."

"Huh?" I asked stupidly.

"Look," said Xander, "it was a dumb thing that happened many years ago. I can't say it was of no consequence, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that big a deal. If you want more details, ask Faith in private. She'll tell you, but it wasn't pretty, she's no threat to you, and it'd be better if you didn't know what happened."

Faith nodded at me in an offhand manner, then she gulped down about a half pint of beer. She didn't seem too concerned, so I forgot about it, filing it all as newlywed jitters.

--- ---

That evening Xander and I walked through the casino. I had read up on the new 'family friendly' attitude they were adopting and discovered that I was welcome, even at eighteen, as long as I didn't gamble, drink, or smoke. I assumed they would also prefer that I didn't prostitute myself until turning twenty-one, but I wasn't positive since they didn't mention anything about that in the family friendly brochures.

I saw a familiar face at the roulette table and asked, "How did you get here before us?"

She looked up and smiled brightly, "Veronica! Fancy meeting you here!" And she hugged me enthusiastically.

"Oh," I said, catching up, "Trina! What are you doing in Vegas?"

"Filming a movie. I got a part in _Leaving Las Vega Too_!"

"Do you get to play Elizabeth Shue's part?" I asked, pretty sure she didn't get any major roles.

"No, this film is a complete re-imagining of the original vision. I play prostitute #3, the one who gives complementary blow-jobs with the rent."

I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud. Trina looked a little hurt, but just a little.

Xander was looking left out, so I said, "Trina, I'd like you to meet my husband, Alexander Harris." Trina was struck dumb. I don't believe I'd ever seen her so surprised. "Xander, this is Trina."

"Wow, Veronica!" she said, putting lots of emphasis on the various syllables in my name, "I don't know what to say. Does Logan know? You're all he talks about."

"Logan?" I said with a quaver, "is he here?"

"Yes, he came back with me after the reading of the will."

"Oh gosh, Trina, you must be devastated about your father!"

"No, not really," she said, "we all know he was a murderer, he got his, and now I've got mine!" she said brightly. "And even better, I think dead-dad will help my career even more than live-dad! It's the notoriety, you know," her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper at the end.

_Sigh_, I thought to myself. Trina was happier with her inheritance than she was with her real father. I couldn't help but pity her. Even worse, she wouldn't understand what I pitied her for. Of course, considering her father maybe I shouldn't judge her. I knew I wouldn't mention to her that I thought the world became a much brighter place the day Aaron Echolls was buried.

"Are you going to introduce me to my twin?" asked Willow from behind me.

Trina was shocked and surprised for the second time that evening. I was still figuring out how Willow managed to sneak up behind me like that, since I usually was alert to the people around me, you know, so as to prevent someone from killing me. So Xander took up the slack and said, "Trina Echolls, this is Willow Rosenberg; Willow, this is Trina." He stepped back and waited to see what, if anything, would happen.

I really don't know what he expected, but not much happened except a lot of staring. Finally, Willow (who after all, had already known about Trina), said, "Do you want to go get a drink, and talk about this?"

Trina agreed and headed for the bar. Willow was only slightly surprised, I think she was thinking a drink of coffee, not alcohol, but she followed readily. I turned to Xander and started to smile at him when I saw a malevolent face staring at me from the crowd behind. I grabbed Xand and shouted, "Down!" We dropped to the floor almost instantly. I guessed this is the sort of thing that happened to Xander from time to time, judging by how fast he dropped at my warning. Any way, Danny Boyd was standing in the middle of the casino, firing an M9 Beretta in my direction with a silly grin on his face. People started screaming and security showed up almost immediately. Danny and another Fitzpatrick, named Conn, I think, ran in the other direction. I popped my head up to follow the action and saw my dad rushing in. _Where the hell did he come from?_ I wondered. Then I saw, though the entry doors to the foyer, Buffy and Mac, with Danny and Conn heading right for them. _Oh my god!_ I thought. Mac was thinking the same thing I think, as she dived behind a potted plant in panicky, but not unreasonable, reaction. But Buffy didn't move. Her eyes narrowed and she looked like death, at least for a moment. Then Danny grabbed her and shouted to the security guards, "Stop, or I'll shoot!" _Real original Danny boy_.

But the surprise was on Danny Boyd, as Buffy disarmed him and took him down in about three seconds, knocked his companion to the floor moments later with a broad sweep of her leg and a left-handed fist-snap against the side of his head. Then Dad finally made it to me.

He bent down and asked, "Are you all right Veronica?"

"Yeah," I said, "but look." I pointed towards the foyer.

Buffy had forced Danny Boyd to the floor and held him with a vicious-looking arm-lock behind his back, and her foot was on Conn Fitzpatrick's neck, apparently with enough pressure to hold him to the floor. The security guards were looking more relieved than anything else, as they got out their handcuffs and calmly took charge of the prisoners.

Dad took in the scene and said to me, "Jesus Christ! I guess she wasn't bullshitting me after all."

"Dad!" I said, "you owe a dollar to the kitchen fund!"

"Come on Veronica! This was exceptional circs. I let you get away with a an errant f-word just last week!" he begged.

"Nope, there was no reason to swear, you knew about Buffy, you just didn't believe it."

"Oh, all right, remind me when we get back."

"Oh, wait dad," I said, "I won't be back except to get my stuff. Married woman here, remember?"

"You know," he said, looking back and forth between me and Xander, "I had hoped that was just a dream."

"Hey, Sheriff M," said Xander, "how come you're back here anyway? We thought you left on business two days ago."

"I was following a couple of bail jumpers and ended up here. In fact, one of them was just captured by Buffy Summers. Do you suppose she would share the reward with me?"

"Maybe, but first you'll have to pry him loose from the LVPD, and judging from the wounded, that won't be easy," I said.

Dad took a careful look around for the first time since he decided I wasn't wounded. In fact, all three of us suddenly realized that there might be some dead bodies behind me. Casino Security had arrived in magnum force though, there were already helpful nurses bandaging the wounded. "Hell," I said, "it looks like a war zone! What the hell was Danny Boyd thinking?"

Xander looked at me in surprise and said, "You _know_ that guy?"

"Well," I replied, "he's not a buddy of mine. In fact, his cousin, tried to torture me last November." Too late, I remembered I never bothered to fill dad in on those details. He glared at me in anger and frustration.

"Veronica," he said slowly, "why don't you tell me about this stuff? Don't you think I would want to do something about it?"

"Yeah, well, Liam Fitzpatrick almost murdered you too, remember?"

"Oh yeah, and guess who the other bail jumper is?"

"Is that why you didn't tell me you were back in Vegas?"

Xander said, "You might want to fill me in too. I, we, have, umm, resources." Dad looked askance at that. I am sure he wondered what the hell I had married into.

But I had no choice anymore, I had to bring Xander and Dad up to speed on some of my activities of the last two years. But I had just gotten past Lily's murder when the cops showed up and wanted to talk to us. It was a long evening.

--- ---

Dad explained that he was a private detective tracking down bail jumpers, and showed Captain Brass the paper on Liam Fitzpatrick and Danny Boyd. Brass said, "You know you can't have Danny Boyd anymore, we will put him on trial for murder."

"Yes, yes, of course. Besides, Buffy Summers captured him, not me. If you would just sign here and here, and put her name in there, the forfeit bail money can be recovered from the courts in Neptune." The Captain filled out the forms.

"Has anybody," I asked, "checked to see where Danny Boyd was staying? After all, where there's one Fitzpatrick, there's probably others and their cousins."

Captain Brass immediately flagged down another investigator and asked my question. She checked her notes and said, "He's staying in room 1447."

Captain Brass left with several other cops. Dad managed to attach himself to the group; I guess you can take the man out of the job, but you can't take the cop out of the man, and to the other cops he was still part of the club. The rest of us sat down and waited.

Trina started babbling to Willow about her movie. I could see that Willow was just barely keeping from rolling her eyes in irritation. It looked like the (possible) twin sisterly bond wasn't going well. I could see the problem, Trina was always a little on the self-involved side and Willow is very much the opposite.

Mostly we sat in silence until a uniformed cop showed up asking for Ms. Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers. He checked Willow's ID and asked her if she had ever consulted for the NCIS. I was delighted when she said yes. _Yes!_ I thought to myself, finally, I had a connection to the Feds! When Willow and Buffy got up to follow the cop, I just naturally attached myself to the parade.

We went up to the fourteenth floor to room 1447. It was immediately obvious, both from an olfactory sensation as well as visual evidence, that at least two people had vomited in the hall. _Gross_, I thought. A bunch of people were standing in the hall, some conferring with people inside the room. When I got closer to the door, it became clear why people were getting sick, an awful stench roiled out of the room in nearly visible waves. Our escort leaned inside and asked for Captain Brass. He came to the door and frowned in our general direction. I got the impression that frowning was his natural expression. But then again, frowning is understandable if you're job is looking at dead and mangled bodies everyday.

Captain Brass talked with Willow and Buffy, finally Buffy said, "I'll wait out here. Let Willow do her job please." And she leaned against the wall next to me. We kind scooted sideways a bit until we could see inside the room, a sliver of it anyway. Honestly, I didn't want to see anymore.

Dad was in a crowd of cops and technicians waiting in the hall and he finally noticed that I was there. He scowled at me, then shook his head and decided not to say anything.

I looked back as Willow went in the room. I was startled to see her hair turn black for a moment. I blinked, surely I was seeing things, that didn't really happen, did it? I turned to Buffy and quietly asked her, "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"Her hair? Did it just flicker black and back to red?"

Buffy looked at me and nodded slightly. She said softly to me, "That could be bad. But let's not mention it to anyone else."

Willow stayed in there for a few minutes, then came out. She looked a little shaken. Captain Brass said, "Well? What do think could have happened?"

"I'm sorry Captain Brass," said Willow, "I need to do some research into those symbols, but I don't think that I will be able to help you."

"I thought this would be a waste of time," Brass said with an even deeper frown.

"It just, well, one thing, the remains in that room are female, so you still need to find Liam Fitzpatrick."

"What? How can you tell?"

"There was a witch in that room, someone practicing black magic. It backfired on her."

Captain Brass and a woman CSI looked at Willow in frank disbelief. The woman, a tall blond who looked so beautiful that she could be on TV, said, "You don't really believe in that nonsense, do you?"

"No, no, of course not," said Willow, a bit unconvincingly, "but the woman in that room did. And she was trying to perform a spell to summon a demon, or perhaps please a demon. Whatever it was, her ingredients exploded, leaving her remains evenly distributed on the walls and furniture." _Oh yuck, yuck, yuck,_ I thought, and now my stomach started to roil and complain in earnest.

"Well tell me something I don't already know," she said tartly.

"I doubt I can. Maybe some research into those symbols will yield something, but don't count on it. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. There's no charge." Willow grabbed Buffy and me and dragged us down the hall towards the elevators. I looked back and the Captain was eying us speculatively. The blond CSI disappeared back into the room. Dad was happy that I finally was leaving the scene of the crime.

--- ---

All of us, except dad, ended up back in our suite. It was a little crowded, but no one wanted to leave.

"So, Willow," said Buffy, "what's the what?"

"When Danny Boyd started shooting, Trina and I dropped to the floor instantly. I did that slow-down spell, you know, one of the emergency spells I keep ready to go. This one attempts to slow hi-speed objects to an unnaturally slow velocity. I didn't think I was fast enough, but between Danny's lousy shooting and my spell, I think we avoided any deaths. Any way, when Buffy tackled and disarmed him, I felt a magical, umm, release, I guess. Or maybe climax. It's hard to describe, but the magic was palpable."

"Wait," Trina interrupted, "magic? Spells? What the hell are you talking about? That stuff does not exist!"

"Trina," I said, as politely as I could, "if you would be more comfortable elsewhere, it wouldn't upset us."

"What? You can't get rid of me that easily. Just tell me, do you believe this stuff?" She turned to Willow and asked, "What are you trying to pull on me? We're twin sisters."

Willow said, "That hasn't been proved."

"Come on," said Trina, "I was adopted, we look identical, ipso something, we must have been separated at birth."

I said, "Trina, your father is Alan Moorehead, and your mother is Mary Mooney. Willow's parents are Ira and Sheila Rosenberg. I checked. What mystery is left? It's been said that everyone has a double, you're the proof." Trina looked irritated.

Willow said, "Well, we will do a DNA analysis, but until then, we won't jump to any conclusions."

Xander asked, "Could we get back to the apocalypse at hand? I am curious to know the depth of the shit, preferably before we get in over our heads."

Trina looked surprised and started to say something, but Willow put her hand on Trina and signaled her to hush. Willow said, "I don't think it's the end of the world, this time, but it might turn into a Sunnydale sized crater if things go wrong."

"So what is it? What happened?' asked Mac, burning with curiosity.

"Oh, that," said Willow, "whatever witch was in the Fitzpatrick's room..."

I interrupted, "Probably Molly Fitzpatrick. She's the only female Fitzpatrick that I know of, and I have something on tape that suggests she was into cursing people. Come to think of it, that might explain a few things."

"You have the Fitzpatrick's on tape," asked Willow, "how did that happen?"

"Um, long story, but I bugged the Fighting Fitzpatrick's hangout, a bar called The River Styx."

Faith looked at me and started laughing softly, "You bugged their bar? You and me are gonna be friends, no doubt about that!"

I looked a little abashed as I said, "I didn't set out with that intention, I was just distracting myself from getting forcibly tattooed on my face by Liam Fitzpatrick. Luckily, my friend Logan interrupted their plans and I got out. I just left a little something behind so I could get payback." Everyone looked at me with strange expressions. I said, "Willow, would you continue please?"

"OK, assuming that was Molly Fitzpatrick, she was trying a spell. The one they were using is long and involved, it was started months ago. Tonight, the intention was to violently kill Veronica at just the right moment; if they had got their timing right, her soul would have been captured and held in an Orb of Thesulah. You understand, this was just a part of the whole spell. I don't yet know what the intention was, but it could be anything from obtaining power, or maintaining a demonic relationship, or just trying to rob a well-guarded place. The symbols she used are pretty standard, I just need a little research time to see which spell she was attempting. I should add, Molly wasn't an especially competent witch."

"Well, duh," said Dawn, "getting herself converted into a sticky red paste kind of suggests that!"

"Now Dawn," said Giles, "there are any number of spells, some quite easy and common, that can have that side effect if performed incorrectly. She might have had quite a lot of talent, and her mistake may simply have been to trust this young thug, Mr. Boyd."

"Or," said Willow, "she might have been a incompetent hack who depended on a certifiable moron to keep her safe. Got it wrong every way possible."

Giles smiled at Willow, "You are probably correct."

I said, "One thing we're forgetting: Liam. He's the man in charge, the one they all look up to. No one in that family does a thing without his approval. Except for Father Patrick Fitzpatrick, but Liam even found ways to use him for his drug trade."

"What!" said Giles, "a Catholic priest involved in illegal drugs?"

"Not to his knowledge. Liam would go into the confessional and leave a little package hidden under the shelf. Then one of the PCH'ers would come in later and retrieve the package. Father Patrick never knew, still wouldn't know, if I hadn't sent him an anonymous letter."

Giles looked at me with an unreadable expression. "So, Mrs. Harris, how did you find out?"

"Oh, are you sure you want to know?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I'll just whisper ..."

"No, tell us."

"Even Trina?"

"Trina won't tell anyone about our discussion, right Trina?" said Willow.

"Right, of course I won't," she said with a peculiar expression.

"Especially after I put a geas on you."

"Can you do that?"

"Yes, but I need your permission for it to work right. So, do I have it?"

Everyone looked at Trina, who looked back. Finally, she realized she wouldn't be allowed to stay without it and said, "Oh, OK, go ahead."

Willow said something under her breath and sprinkled a little powder in Trina's direction. Then she nodded at me to continue.

I sighed, "Well, I bugged the confessional—no sound, just video."

Faith shrugged and said, "Hey whatever gets the job done."

Mac and Trina both shook their heads at me, but said nothing. The general level of disapproval was almost solid. I said, "After I got the bug out, I went to confession and, er, confessed. A different church of course. I was forgiven, even though I'm not Catholic, the priest even told me my heart was in the right place, but he added, 'Don't do it again or you'll burn in hell'."

Eventually, the evening wound down with most everyone finding better things to do. Willow and Giles sat down to research with Willow's laptop. Xander and I just sat with each other and communed silently. Who am I kidding? I sat quietly and happily while Xander itched with boredom. Finally, I relented and let him turn on the TV, but I drew the line at the porn channel(s).

A couple of hours later, Willow and Giles looked up from the screen. We looked over at them, since they had apparently found something.

Willow said, "Oh goddess."

Giles said, "Oh dear lord."

--- ---

--End of Chapter Four--

--TBC--

Next: The Kane Connection

Footnotes:

Unwritten and untitled, but plotted; a story concerning vampires on the battlefield.


	5. Chapter 5

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_Author's notes: Comdex Las Vegas occurs in January (when it is held at all) and is called CES now; I moved it to July to serve my plot and kept the old name. Also, the Las Vegas family friendly marketing campaign has been replaced with the slogan '_What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas'_. (Now where have we heard that before?) But I figure Veronica simply remembered the old campaign, maybe even found a forgotten display of old brochures._

_**Chapter 5**_

_The Kane Connection Part I_

--May 2006--

_Oh oh_, I thought. _This can't be good. _ I was getting worried as I cooled my heels at the airport. My phone couldn't get a signal, Dad probably was trying to call me now. I needed to get to a place where I could at least access my messages. But the plane would take off in about thirty minutes; would it even be possible to get far enough away from the airport for my phone to work and still make it back in time to catch the plane? No, there wouldn't be enough time to go through security again. _Damn!_

--July 2006--

Willow said, "Oh goddess."

Giles said, "Oh dear lord."

"Oh wait," said Willow as she flipped a page, "look here, the date is off."

"That makes a difference, it would appear that this contretemps is going to be a touch less perilous than we expected, perhaps we were overzealous in our calling on the gods," said Giles.

"Well, maybe, but it still looks pretty bad."

"What!" I'd had enough of Willow and Giles babbling to each other, "what the hell are you talking about?"

Xander looked up with a questioning expression, "Don't worry about them, this is normal."

Giles said, "Actually, it has to do with why we are in Las Vegas in the first place. There is a prophecy..."

Willow and Xander both rolled their eyes and said said (nearly in chorus), "It's the end of the world, again!"

"Yes, thank you for the editorial," said Giles, a bit stuffily, "but in fact this was in the Pergamum Codex, an ancient book with which we are all familiar."

"I'm not," I said.

"I didn't mean you, Veronica, I know very well that you haven't been exposed to the in-depth and laborious research experience of the, uh, er, Scooby gang. But, you will be, and the Codex is an ancient book of prophecies concerning the Slayer, a book which has a very unusual property: it is always correct."

Xander shook his head mournfully, "Gotta disagree with you there G-man, it's right only if you ignore the fact that the prophecies are full of exceptions and misrepresentations and outright misleading statements. The only way they always come true is in hindsight and re-interpretation. Not once has one of those prophetic thingies been useful in advance. Only in interpreting what happened."

Willow said, "He has a point Giles."

"No," Giles said forcefully, "it's always right, it's just our interpretation that is incomplete. There is always a germ of truth at the bottom of each one. Even if we haven't fully deciphered the meaning, it still gives us enough information to prepare and point us in the right direction."

Xander and Willow shot glances at each other. They both nodded and Willow said, "All right I'll grant you that much. As long as we all understand that these prophecies must be taken with more than a few grains of salt."

I couldn't stand it any longer, "What does the prophecy say?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry my dear," said Giles, "I had forgotten you're new here. It says:

_And woe be unto the tide of humanity,_

_If the newest slayer of the nightbeast arises _

_In the city of sinful paradise of the desert,_

_And is taken by the last vampire of the light,_

_And she shall be turned to the night,_

_Unless the cruc..._

Of course I've paraphrased it from the Aramaic — the original was really much more poetic and flowery."

"But, what about the rest of it?

"That's the problem you see. The page was ripped and a portion of it is missing."

"So lets find another copy of the book! Surely there was more than one printing? Gallery proofs maybe? Author's notes?" I fear I was babbling.

"No, this is from an eighth century book. It was not printed on a printing press, because, clearly, it predates the printing press. It was handwritten, number twenty-four of one-hundred and thirteen and in turn those copies were copies of a scroll that in turn were copies of a tablet that was written in ancient Sumer several thousand years before the seventh century scribes did their work. In fact, there were undoubtedly several transcriptions on its journey from Sumer to Nevada. So the original was translated from Sumerian to Aramaic, and now to English, so there could easily be errors introduced through ignorance, malevolence or just plain carelessness."

"Wolfram and Hart probably has a copy of it, possibly more than one," said Xander, "too bad we don't have any contacts there since the massacre of the LA branch."

I looked at Giles' notes and asked, "Hey G-man, just how do you figure '_city of sinful paradise of the desert'_ refers to Las Vegas? I mean seriously, if the prophecy was written in ancient Mesopotamia, why would you think there was a connection to Nevada? Those guys weren't even aware of this continent, much less a city which was five thousand years in their future."

"First of all Veronica, if you value your life, don't ever call me G-man again."

"But Xander did, and I thought –"

Giles interrupted me and and rather sternly said, "Yes, but Xander has built up an enormous amount of goodwill, although he is using it up at a prodigious rate. He knows that if he continues, one day I shall cut his tongue out of his head. I prefer Giles or Rupert—no nicknames until you have saved my life at least once, if you please."

"You and what army old man?" asked Xander.

Giles glared at him and replied, "Ripper won't need any help." I was getting worried by the apparent enmity between these two. As I studied their respective expressions and body language I finally realized that this was just their way of bantering with each other. _Men!_ I thought.

Giles turned back to me and continued, "In answer to your question, there is more to the prophecy, and we believe that it points here. It is our best educated guess. As to how the prophesiers come to their conclusions, it was magic, of course."

"Magic huh? Well, I have to accept your conclusion, for now. And what gave you and Willow the wiggins?"

"Oh, that's easy. We just successfully uncovered another part. You see, there is another book called the '_Gilded Lips of the Upper Euphrates_', written by the Pharaoh's most valuable slave, a prophet, and it has a line that reads thusly:

_And a great darkness will fall upon the earth and the skies above and the caves below while the turned Warrior of the Gods extinguishes all that is good and worthy and worships her enemies._

You can see why we were perturbed, that seems to suggest that that a slayer will be sired. Normally, we would consider that impossible since the power that makes a Slayer is more powerful than the demon that makes a vampire. But we also thought vampires couldn't ever conceive children, either. We were proven wrong in that assumption, so..."

"That's a nasty sounding sentence," I said, "what happened to improve your outlook?"

Willow said, "The next paragraph, it says this will occur during the third millennium, after the total eclipse of the sun over the confluence of the great river and the first lesser river. It doesn't matter that we haven't figured out which rivers they're talking about because we just figured out that the next eclipse won't happen here until 2017."

"How do you know they weren't referring to the total solar eclipse observed in Egypt in March of this year? Surely the Sumerians would have calculated all eclipses that would happen in their own neighborhood before they calculated eclipses for places they didn't know about."

Willow and Giles chimed, "Oops."

Willow added, "Holy Hecate! How did I miss that?" as she frantically googled eclipses.

Actually, I wondered how the Sumerians could have calculated eclipses at all without an accurate knowledge of the diameter of the earth and the mechanics of the solar system. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it.

I asked, "Does Wolfram and Hart have a Las Vegas branch office?"

Giles said, "Ah, I don't know, the subject never came up before."

Xander grabbed a phone book and flipped through it, "Ah ha! Yes, they do." He looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"Why don't we just call them up and ask? I'll make an appointment to see them, find out what it'll cost to buy the information." I didn't mention that I intended to case the joint while I was there. No use in worrying my husband unnecessarily.

Willow said, "Well, it probably won't work, but let's not leave the stone unturned." And she made the appointment for us right then and there.

--- ---

Xander and I were crossing the casino when I heard a familiar voice ask, "Hey Veronica, what are you doing here?"

"Wallace? Wallace! How'd you get here?" I said as I hugged him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Xander getting a little twitchy.

"You first Veronica."

"I needed to get out of Neptune for awhile, and Mac wanted to go to Comdex, so I tagged along. You?"

"My mom's working Kane Software's booth, she was able to invite me along as a fringe benefit. It's kinda cool here, huh? Hey, you got any –" Wallace paused, looked around, and whispered in my ear, "– fake ID's?"

"Big sigh," I said, "I got busted, no fakes, we have to be our actual age. Oh, by the way, I'm on my honeymoon."

Wallace looked astounded. "WHAT? You and Logan got hitched? When did this happen? You didn't invite me to the wedding?"

"Uh, no, no, not Logan, Xander. Right here, Xander, this is my friend Wallace Fennel, Wallace, this is my husband, Xander Harris."

Wallace looked pretty funny as he tried to process my introduction. "You didn't get enough of the Neptune Pirates? You had to marry one?" he finally blurted with confused look, obviously wondering if I was joking.

Xander laughed and said, "This eyepatch is real, I can't wear my fake eyeball all the time or the socket might get infected."

"Oh man, I'm so sorry, I thought you – god, I really put my foot in it, didn't I?"

Xander chuckled and said, "Chomped it off, too. But hey, don't worry about it."

"When did you two meet?" asked Wallace.

"Last week," I replied.

"So it was a whirlwind romance?"

"Not so much," I said.

"A drunken party?" Wallace asked with a joking grin.

Xander and I looked at each other ruefully and nodded, "Yeah, that's about it."

"Veronica Mars, you're just full of surprises!"

"Er, it's Veronica Harris, now. Although I plan to keep Mars for professional purposes."

Xander looked at me in surprise. "Professional what?"

"Private investigator, of course."

"Oh of course. Don't I get say in this?"

"No."

--- ---

"Hey Wallace," I asked, "how long you gonna be in Vegas?"

"Just for another day. Mom'll be here for another week, but I'm gonna go to Chicago for the rest of the summer to visit my dad. Mom didn't like it, but I put my foot down."

"By any chance, did you happen to notice if Clarence Weidman was in town with the Kane Software contingent?"

"Yeah, I noticed that guy. He's a little on the creepy side, ya know? How come you wanta know about him?"

"Oh, no reason. Just curious."

"Uh uh. Look, if you don't wanta tell me the reason, just tell me you don't wanna tell me. But don't lie to me, Veronica Mars."

"Sorry Wallace, I don't want to tell you because I am just not sure of what's going on yet. I've got a decision tree with about a hundred branches on it, and I'm working on trimming it down. And it's Veronica Harris now."

"You're serious about this marriage thing?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Would you believe it's because of the great sex?"

"Really? I'm not sure that I want to hear about your great sex, at least not until I'm getting great sex. Hell, I'd be happy with mediocre sex."

"I'll cool it about the sex talk, but I think I may have hit the jackpot with Xander."

"Oh, OK. Just so you got a good reason. And, Veronica, congratulations, I mean it."

--- ---

"Hey Xander, do you think you could program our shower in this order: Spring, Fall, Summer, Winter, then a repeat of Spring?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Wellll, I was just thinking about Script Three in Chapter Two," I said, as I slouched down in the couch which made my already short skirt ride up a little, and stretched my legs out at the same time. Xander's eyes naturally followed my legs upwards.

"That's uh, uh, ah, a great idea. When?"

"How about right now?"

"Let's go!"

--- ---

"As god is my witness, I'll never have another cold shower as long as I live!" I quoted myself as Xander happily toweled me off.

Xander said, "When did you ever have to take cold showers?"

"Oh, we had a plumbing problem at the apartment for a few months. Say, if we ever manage to live in the same house at the same time, how soon would it be before we can afford to buy a shower like this one?"

"Some time between slim and never. But I bet I could build one, in fact, I've got some ideas to make it even better."

"Xander, my hero!" I gushed.

"Plumbers!" Xander replied with a smile, "The unsung heroes of the modern lifestyle!"

--- ---

I walked into the formal dining room with Xander and I couldn't help but notice Mac Mackenzie was having lunch with an older woman. I wondered who she was and started in that direction when I noticed Logan Echolls on the other side of the room, luckily facing away from me. I turned on a dime, and after disentangling myself from colliding with Xander, said, "Let's go to the snack bar, instead. I'm not up for a big meal."

Xander looked around the room first, and didn't see anything that jumped out at him, so he said, "OK, but one day I would like to know why."

"Deal," I said.

--- ---

"Mac, there you are, are you up for giving me a little help in the phone department?"

"Depends on what you need, Veronica, I only have a few phone-phreaker tools with me; of course that does include my laptop which is practically a whole phone company all by itself."

"I want to make a call to this hotel that appears to come from Kane Software in Neptune."

"Do you know the number you want to spoof?"

"Yes. What happens if someone, like the police, or a private detective, tries to trace the call?"

"They won't be able to trace it past the hotel's PBX."

"Perfect." I watched with interest as Max set up her laptop to fake out the phone system. It didn't look that hard to do, it's just knowing what to do that I didn't know.

Finally, Mac picked up the phone and handed it to me. "It's all ready for you. Just dial and talk."

I did, the phone rang and the hotel operator answered.

"Hi," I said in receptionist speak, "Clarence Weidman's room please." I held one of the little PI devices that dad and I collect and pushed it against the receiver. This one recorded the various beeps and whistles coming out of the phone and up popped a room number.

Then, surprisingly, Clarence answered, I said using my best professional voice and a southern accent, "Mr. Weidman, this is Sally Johnson from your office, we just received a letter from the Post Office. It came with an official Post Office form that says it was found behind a sorting machine during a remodel and was delayed since last year. It's from Amelia DeLongpre. Would you like me to have it delivered to you, or shall I just hang on to it until you return?"

I could almost hear Clarence frowning as he said, "Amelia DeLongpre? Well, I doubt it could be anything important now, so just send it along with the next regular messenger."

"Yes sir," I said perkily, "it'll go out tomorrow," and I hung up.

Mac looked at me with raised eyebrows. I smiled back and gave her a thumb's up signal.

She asked, "Do you really have a letter from beyond the grave?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure that Clarence would be expecting an envelope tomorrow."

"What are you going to send him?"

"Not certain yet, I have to throw out a few dozen competing theories first."

"Can I help?"

"Sure Mac," I said, "but answer me first: was that Madison Sinclair's mother I saw with you at lunch today?"

"She's _my_ mother, not Madison's."

"It's an amazing coincidence, you happening to run into her three hundred miles from home." I paused to let her answer and studied her expression. "Except it wasn't a coincidence, was it?"

"No Ronnie, I arranged it beforehand. I sent Regina Sinclair a short note, giving her my schedule. Actually, we've had lunch, as well as a few dinners, several times since Cassidy Casablancas died. Always in the sort of places where Madison wouldn't be caught dead. It's been fun for us to get know each other."

"She helped you deal with Cassidy?"

"Ummm, yes, at least as well as anyone could help."

"And how is this going to end?" I wondered aloud.

"I don't see why it should end. We've both agreed to keep Madison in the dark since she would probably kill herself if she found out her real parents were just a step above trailer park trash."

"Cindy MacKenzie, you are selling your family short!"

"Yeah, well I can criticize them, they're my family. And they do love me—I just wish..."

"Of course, you might have turned out like Madison, all stuck up and bitchy with no real friends and not knowing the difference."

"Ha! As if. Reggie tried to tell me the same thing, I told her breeding shows. After all, Lauren is much more like me than her adopted sister. I think she liked that."

"OK," I said, "not to change the subject or anything but are you ready for my latest hypothesis on the Fitzpatrick's and the Kane's?"

"Hit me!"

"Could Celeste Kane be a vampire?" I asked.

"Hmm," mused Mac, "well she certainly fills the evil, soulless, bloodsucking, heart of stone part, but she doesn't burn up in the sun, so, strike one, as my dad would say."

"Yeah, so how about the Fitzpatricks? Now we've all seen Liam, Molly, Conn, and Danny in sunlight. But you know, Molly had something like a dozen brothers, Ciaran and Padraig Fitzpatrick are two that I know of—fine examples of high-school drug-dealers. Some them could easily have avoided the light of day. They are all a bunch of midnight skulkers anyway."

"Yeah, they seem stupid enough too. It's not a strike, but we can't answer that question without more information."

"Yeah. So, how about this, could Liam be blackmailing the Kanes?'

"Could be I suppose. But Jake Kane is very wealthy and very powerful; I don't have to tell you that."

I agreed, "Yep, if Liam had tried such a thing he likely would've ended up unusually dead, complete with another lowlife conveniently at hand to pin it on."

"Unless he was smart enough to stay anonymous."

"Yeah," I said, "that's where I have a problem. Liam isn't one of the great thinkers of the century, not even this century so far."

"He is a weasel though, and weasels are damn clever animals."

"But ultimately it doesn't have the right feel for a Fitzpatrick hustle. I just can't see 'em conceiving of a plan to blackmail one of the wealthiest families in the country. Of course, they could have stumbled across a bit of damaging information, then they might, and I wish to emphasize how little I believe in their ultimate competence, they _might_ have been able to take advantage. On the other hand, I know they have something on, or with, the Kane's doctor, Dr. Levine. But I haven't yet been able to fit that in with the other facts. And let's not forget their connection with Kendall Casablancas."

"What connection would that be?"

"Oh, I guess I never mentioned it, but she is in tight with the Fitzpatricks. She used to be a con-artist. Come to think of, probably still is."

Hmmm," Mac mused again, "I think we would be jumping conclusions without more info."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that. I'm the one who's always been good at reasoning from an incomplete set of facts. You've got too much of the scientist in you."

"I'll take that as a complement."

"And it was meant that way. Sometimes, my unfounded conclusions turn around and bite me in the ass. I hate it when that happens."

"Hey you know what?" Max said, "I saw Logan today. He stopped briefly at my table and asked where you were. I told him I didn't know, and he wanted to get a message to you. I told him I didn't think you were taking his messages, but just in case, he gave me this."

And she handed me a letter. It was quite the handsome thing, an envelope of handmade paper, my name beautifully written with a Mont Blanc pen, I'll wager, complete with a wax seal over the flap. It might have done the trick had it been delivered ten days ago. Hell, who am I kidding? Certainly not myself. I wasn't ready to forgive him then, and I wouldn't have been ready now even under vastly different circumstances. I did like the fact that he was trying so hard though. I put the letter in my bag, unopened.

Mac looked at it wistfully, I could tell that she was burning with curiosity.

"Ah, ah, ah," I said, "curiosity killed the cat."

"Not my cat," she replied. When I didn't respond she continued, "Why don't we brainstorm with Willow? I believe she can think at right angles to everyone else, and that might help here."

--May 2006--

I must have been near to panic, I could only think my phone wasn't working when I suddenly realized that my laptop would work. They had Wi-Fi at the airport, I remembered reading about the big fight between a multi-billion dollar corporation that wanted to charge for the service and the county which wanted to provide it for free. Strangely, the county won.

So I whipped it out of my pack and booted that sucker up, soon I was downloading my e-mails and there was one from dad, about ten minutes old. I read it and, hell, no New York. Actually, he said go and go without him, but no way would I do that. So I emailed him back that I was staying. Then I went out and called Logan.

--July 2006--

"Hey Mac," I asked, "you planning on going to the Kane shindig tonight?"

"Hell yeah, that's probably the main reason I wanted to come here this year. There's been rumors of all sorts of circulating around the Internet. Jake Kane himself is supposed to introduce whatever new thing they've got. Whatever it is, it's sure to be big."

"Jake Kane is here?" I asked. I think I was successful in keeping my nervousness out of my voice. At least, I hoped so. Worse, I thought, where you find Jake you'll usually find Celeste not too far away.

"Yes Veronica, of course Jake is here, it's his company's future on the line. You know the MPAA's suit against KSW has been going on for three years now, and it has been a very expensive fight for both sides. One of the rumors has it that they've joined forces. I kinda have a hard time believing that one, it would make too much sense for Hollywood, and they are conspicuously lacking in sense."

"I don't understand," asked Xander, "why did the MPAA sue Kane Software? I'm afraid I wasn't paying too much attention since I kept getting distracted by the end of the world and hot chicks with superpowers."

"Oh that's easy," said Mac, "KSW made their fortune with a very efficient video streaming codex, two guesses as to what is the biggest use of that technology? And the second guess doesn't count."

"Uh, movies?"

"Sure."

"But, why wouldn't the movie industry get behind that and use it to increase interest in movies and make more money?"

"Oh Xander, Xander," I said, "so worldly and yet so naïve. Naturally movie fans used it to pass around their favorite movies, so the MPAA called them pirates, not realizing that these were some of their best customers. So of course they sued everyone in sight, including the company with deep pockets that made it all possible. You can see why Kane would fight this with everything he has, the future of his whole company depends on defeating the MPAA."

"I wonder," mused Mac, "would that include murder?"

"Well," I said carefully, "I wouldn't want to be quoted publicly, but if it did, I know the guy who'd be in charge of making the hits for the Kanes."

Xander looked at me and said with a wry smile, "Of course you do."

"But what I don't understand," said Mac, "is how does this all tie together? We have: vampires, the Fitzpatricks, the Kane's doctor, the plastic surgeon (maybe), streaming video, a hit-man, a big lawsuit, and at least two attempts to kill Veronica. I mean, it's all gotta be related, it'd be too coincidental if these were all separate conspiracies, don'tcha think?"

Xander, the voice of reason, suggested, "Well, the movie and software thing might be independent, but odds are, it's all connected and we just have to figure out how."

"Heh," said Mac, "maybe Beaver did it all before he jumped!"

I couldn't help it, I laughed, but it took a _lot_ of self-control to keep it from turning hysterical.

Then Xander asked, "Who's Beaver?"

--End of Chapter Five--

--TBC--

Next: The Kane Connection Part II

_Author's request: Does anyone have any suggestion at all as to what Kendall could have had in her briefcase that could cause Keith to so drastically change his plans? I'm about ready to just call it a MacGuffin and let it go at that._

_Notes: I promise there will be at least some action in the next chapter._


	6. Chapter 6

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_**Chapter 6**_

_The Kane Connection Part II_

--July 2006--

"So Xand, what do you want to know?" I asked. We were relaxing in the bedroom where it was unlikely that we would be interrupted.

"Who is Beaver?" he asked again, "This question is obviously not comfortable for you, so if you'd rather not talk about, that's OK with me. But you seem a little twitchy, like you need to talk about it."

"Oh Xander, this is gonna be hard."

"So don't tell me."

"I think I need to. I haven't talked with anyone about this, except Logan Echolls and that was not particularly satisfactory. But to understand I have to go back a couple of years and tell you about my life."

"We've got all the time you need."

I picked up the story after Lily's death, telling him about how I made a fool of myself at Shelley Pomroy's party.

"Hey, that's all in the past, we all have at least one embarrassing high school story," he said, unaware that he was echoing Meg's comment to me.

"Yeah, but I haven't mentioned the part about waking up in the guest bedroom the next morning and finding my underwear had been removed by someone unknown to me while I was passed out." He was visibly upset at that revelation.

"At school, for the next year, whenever I spotted one of the guys who was at the party, I imagined him on the bed with me, leering over my unconscious body, strange hands up under my dress, and, and my imagination went into overtime, it made my skin crawl. If I thought about it too much, it was overwhelming. To compensate, I got tough, to the point where by the end of the year most of the other students were afraid of me."

"That sounds like a good thing," said Xander approvingly, "something similar happened to Buffy, Willow and me, except the getting drugged part. And more Buffy than the rest of us."

"Well, towards the end of my junior year, I finally figured out what had happened. It seems that I was roofied by accident! It drove me crazy that the whole thing was unplanned. And that it was my ex-boyfriend Duncan Kane who had spent the night with me. He too had been drugged, without his knowledge, but on purpose by a friend of his who was just trying lighten things up for him."

"You were date-raped by your ex-boyfriend?" asked Xander.

"No, no, it wasn't rape, maybe you don't realize how much of a relief it was to discover it was Duncan and not some drooling pimple-face little jerk. The relief was overwhelming, it's what I would have wanted if I hadn't been drugged."

"Oh, well," Xander said doubtfully, "I guess that makes it all right then."

"It was all right, except for not being able to remember what happened, and there were some side issues with Duncan's mother that messed things up, but never mind all that." I went on to tell him about the bus crash and everything I did to solve the case, leading up to:

"So, back in May I was at the Alterna-Prom – "

"The what now?" Xander interrupted.

"See the prom had been canceled, so we held a private party and called it – "

" – I see, alternative prom, makes sense, I might have done something like that if I had been a part of the in-crowd like you."

"I hadn't been a part of the in-crowd for two years, not officially anyway. Although I had kind of worked my back in around the edges. So anyway, that's when I finally figured out that Cassidy Casablancas was the killer."

"What? How?"

"Oh, because I discovered that he was in the Mayor's little league team and I was diagnosed with chlamydia."

"Uh, Veronica, did you leave out a few steps? You remind me of Willow's "_so it follows that..._' and she doesn't bother to mention the three pages of calculations it took to find the answer. And hey, chlamydia?"

"I'm healthy as a horse, you have nothing to worry about. As far as my train of logic, Cassidy (formerly known as Beaver) had been sexually abused by the mayor, Woody Goodman, along with a few of his teammates. When I discovered that Woody had been treated for the same STD that I had, I leaped to a conclusion, correctly as it turned out."

"Geez, nasty mayors all around, remind me to tell you about Sunnydale's mayor one of these days."

"So, Beaver was really a devious little sociopath who absolutely did not want anyone to know about his, er, interactions with Woody. So when two of his fellow victims came to him with a plan to go public with the whole thing in order to bring the mayor down, Cassidy casually planned their murder, along with anyone else who happened to be on the bus with them, which would've included me except I got left behind by accident."

"Where is he now? I'll take care of him," he said very matter-of-factly and with no braggadocio.

"Don't get ahead of the story Xander."

"Oh, sorry, go on."

"At the party, Cassidy was in a hotel room with Mac. I must have panicked because I unthinkingly sent her a text message saying the Cassidy was the killer. Unfortunately, she was in the shower and he read the message. Then he tricked me into meeting him on the roof. He held me at gunpoint, blew up the plane carrying the mayor and, I thought at the time my father, he admitted that he had raped me at the Pomroy party, and then he tried to force me to jump off the roof,."

"Wait, what? I thought Duncan was with you at the party!"

"Before Duncan found me, Beaver had his way, giving me his infection that he got from Woody."

"Oh Veronica..." he started to say.

"Don't--"

"Huh?"

"Just don't say anything. Nothing will really help except time. And after all, I don't actually remember any of it; in some ways that's worse, but it is less traumatic I think." Xander held me more tenderly than usual.

"I'm not an injured puppy, Xander, please don't treat me any different than you have for the last week."

"How can I not? At least give me some time to catch up." There were tears in his eye and, oh god, tears leaking from around his eyepatch. I guess the tear ducts still worked even without an eyeball.

"Xander," I said, "it happened nearly two years ago, just because it was only in May that I finally was able to piece together the whole story is no reason for me to feel all victimized over it. And it is over now, while Beaver was threatening me with his gun, I text-messaged Logan. He got to the roof and distracted Beaver long enough for us to jump him. I grabbed his gun and was about to shoot him myself when Logan stopped me. That was a good thing, I suppose, but I _still_ wish I'd shot him, I was gonna shoot his balls off. But he jumped off the roof instead."

"So Beaver's dead?"

"Splattered all over the parking lot. Oh, and one other thing, remember I told you about Aaron Echolls?"

"Yeah, he murdered your friend Lily."

"After he managed to OJ his way into an acquittal, he ended up at the same hotel that night. Somebody shot him at nearly the same time as Beaver was diving off the ledge."

"I could hardly have missed that – it was all over the news for days on end. That's really some town you got there."

--- ---

I walked in my original hotel room, Mac's now, and found her humming and singing quietly as she worked at her computer, "_Cause I'm a twenty-first century digital girl, my daddy is a worker hauling ah hummm, hummm, my mommy's on drugs but hummmmm..., yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know how to love but I have to live in this world, hummmm, hummmm..., yeah, yeah, yeah, hummmm..., I'm a twenty-first century digital girl..."_

"Howya doin Mac," I asked.

"Just about ready, this should do it, now to compile it – there! Let's test it."

"So, what's this do now?" I asked.

"Well, this should go through all four hundred hours of the digitized recordings from the River Styx and mark each place where Liam is speaking. It will output each mark into the second program, which when we run it, will start to play each one, then skip to the next. We'll be able to stop it from skipping and listen if it sounds like a conversation we want to hear, or skip to the next one. Each time we pick _listen_, it will output a marker to yet a third program and each time we pick _skip_, it will output to yet a fourth, both for future listening in case we get bored someday."

"All these different programs sounds complicated," I said, wouldn't this have been easier in Windows?"

"No, I'd still be writing code. In Linux these are all just simple little programs that take each other's output, it's the Unix way, easy and nearly foolproof."

"I thought you like Macs, Mac."

"I do, but sometimes, Linux is easier. Let's get started."

She typed furiously for a a few moments and then there was nothing but a flashing dot on an otherwise blank screen. After a couple of minutes of that I asked, "Is it working? Or stuck?"

"It's working fine, I didn't waste time programming any fancy stuff. I suppose we might as well do something else for an hour or so."

When the program finished scanning, Mac typed _playback_, then we listened to that butthead Liam all night long. By the time morning came around, I was ready to shower in bleach, that Liam was really foul mouthed. But, we found out a few things, it was time for a scooby meeting.

--- ---

We gathered in the living room of our suite.

Giles said, "So Veronica, I understand you have made progress."

"Yes I have. Mac and I listened to my tapes all night, with Mac's programming genius at sorting out the chaff, we found some pretty important information."

"So let's hear it," said Xander, a bit impatiently I thought. But maybe he just missed me during the night. I know I missed him.

"OK, some of this is little confused, and some of our conclusions still need to be verified, but essentially, we found that someone in the Kane family hired the Fitzpatricks to assassinate Aaron Echolls."

Everyone murmured, there were exclamations of "Liam did it!" and others.

"No, no, Liam was supposed to do it while Aaron was still in prison, but somehow he missed his chance and was unable to get to him while the trial was going on. After the trial, someone else offed Aaron, leaving Liam fit to be tied. Not only would he not get paid, but someone was putting pressure on him to return the down payment, which was big. Liam went on and on about having to pay back a hundred thousand dollars, he wasn't a happy camper."

Buffy asked, "But how did the Kane family know that it wasn't the Fitzpatricks who offed Aaron?"

"Well," said Willow, "the only way they could know that, is if they knew who did it."

"Yep," I agreed, "it was more than likely the head of security at KSW who did the deed. But no one will ever be able to prove it, if it was up to his usual standards."

"Plus," added Mac, "why would we want to? Aaron had it coming."

"Yeah, frankly, I'm glad he's dead. So, to continue with the Fighting Fitzpatricks. Liam not only objected to returning his payment, he still wanted the balance due. Since Aaron was dead, even if by another hand, he felt the contract had been fulfilled. He had a way to blackmail the Kane's family doctor, so he did. He didn't get much for his effort though, the Kanes didn't really have that much dirt, or if they did, they didn't talk tell the doc about it. So eventually, he turned to the dark arts for his payback. He persuaded his sister, who was a budding witch, to attempt to raise a demon to, well, I'm not completely sure what the intention was, but I guess he would get the demonic forces on his side and get his money and kill off some Kanes. But, as we all know, it backfired, but my bug ran out of battery power a couple of months ago. So no recent info."

"Well," said Giles, "it's starting to look like the plots against Veronica surely were instigated by this Liam fellow, and quite likely has little to do with our prophecy."

"Yeah, I've been thinking abut that," I said, "and I'm down to about 50/50."

Xander interjected, "Which is another way of saying you don't know."

"You got that right," I agreed.

"Well," asked Willow, "why would you think the prophecy is connected with you?"

I said, "It's not so much me, but the Fitzpatricks. It's possible, and I would need some of your expertise Willow to tell how reasonable this is, that Molly Fitzpatrick got crosswise with the prophecy, or somebody who has something to do with it. And this might have been part of her problem with the spell. Because, all in all, everything I've learned about magic suggests that such a massive backfire as Molly pulled off, takes either spectacular incompetence, or spectacular over-confidence, or high-powered interference, anyway something besides just missing a step. I mean poor Molly really got pulverized. And come to think of, we're still not certain that it was Molly."

"Oh," said Willow, "I'll hack into the coroner's files and see what they got." She mumbled under her breath something about not having the Las Vegas lab bookmarked.

Faith asked, "Are there any Fitzpatricks still in town? If so, can we bug them?"

I raised my eyebrows, I could get to like Faith.

--- ---

"Veronica, would you please stop running away from me?"

I stopped and turned, "Why, Logan, I have nothing to say to you." Xander turned and came back to me.

"So who's this, your bodyguard? You think you need protection from me now?"

My heart almost broke as I said, "No, this is Xander Harris, my husband."

Logan's expressive face told me everything. I did break his heart. "Logan..."

"No, don't say anything Veronica. You went out and did this to get back to me, payback, right? Isn't that what you do now? You get payback for every slight, real or imagined."

"No Logan, I'm in love with Xander, and he's in love with me."

"Oh, well, so the payback is just, what, fortuitous?"

"Logan, are you kidding me? You're just like your father."

"What? I'm not a murderer! I despised him!"

"I know you're not a murderer, you proved that on the roof. I half expected you to turn and shoot Beaver when you took the gun from my hands. But you didn't."

"Then why, Veronica, why did you do this?"

"I care for you Logan, I really do, and I always will in some way," I said as I put my arm around Xander, "but I could never trust you. Answer me this, why did your mother jump off the Coronado Bridge? Do you know how many women Aaron bedded during his marriage? And how many times have I caught you with another woman in the short time we were together? How long would it be before I again found Kendall Casablancas smirking at me from your room? Or Hannah Griffith; god, that poor girl probably thinks you love her. Lily was right to dump you after all, wasn't she? Like father, like son Logan Echolls—your dad couldn't keep his pants zipped up, and neither can you. Your mother was a saint to put up with him. I'm not. I'm sorry Logan, but this is goodbye."

With each sentence he looked like he took a bullet to his gut. At the end, he was deflated, he had nothing to say, he just turned and left. My eyes blurred as I watched him walk away. I turned and buried my face in Xander's chest.

Xander asked me quietly, "Do you know his sister's cell phone number?"

"I think I have it somewhere, why?"

"I think someone needs to make sure he stays alive through the night. I think you hurt him about as bad as he could be hurt."

"Yeah, I guess I did. Maybe he was right, maybe it was payback, but it all just came pouring out, I think it was needed to clear the air."

"Clear the air, huh, well, I think he knows where you stand now."

--End of Chapter Six--

--TBC--

Next: The Prophetic Connection


	7. Chapter 7

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_**Chapter 7**_

_The Prophetic Connection Part I_

--July 2006--

Xander and I were sitting in the living area of our suite. It was very quiet for a change, since the rest of the gang was out doing something or other. It was cool between Xander and me. And by _cool_, I mean chilly, strained, cold even, anything but cool actually. We should have been in the bedroom, or the shower (Xand had taken to calling it the _holo-shower_). But the fact of the matter was, we needed to thaw the atmosphere between us first. And I wasn't sure I understood why things were like this. Xander was pretending to read a thin report from the Slayer School, but I could see he wasn't into it. And me? I wasn't even trying, I just stared at the carpet trying to hide my distress.

"So," said Xander as he put his unread report down, "you and Logan were a thing, huh? Did you have some issues with him? Are you ready to tell me why you crushed him like a cockroach? I'd kinda like to know, just to make sure I don't piss you off that much."

"Uh, there's nothing hidden there Xand, it's over between Logan and me. Truly, we weren't together all that long anyway."

"Hmmm," he said, "I didn't think you were capable of fooling yourself, but you are you know."

I hesitated, then said, "I, I don't know what you mean."

"You still have unresolved feelings for Logan. There, I described the elephant sitting next to you. You took it out on him because of your own insecurities and feelings. Maybe you were making certain that there is no way to take up with him again. Or possibly you were just trying to justify your own actions—our actions really—in getting married and trying to make it work."

_What? No way!_ I thought to myself, _it's not possible, everything I said to Logan was true! I meant every word, no way was I insecure!_ _ Not me, I'm too tough, besides, I would never take out my feelings on someone else like that, it's just not me, is it?_

"Xander," I said softly, "that's not true."

"Yeah, I think you're hiding something from yourself. I've got a story for you, from my past, but before I regale you with tales of Sunnydale, I want to be certain that you know that I don't cheat, well not anymore anyway."

"What! You have a cheating history?" I was surprised.

"Not so much, it was a surprisingly chaste kiss that got me in trouble, not a relationship."

I said, "OK, but you're gonna have to enlarge on that."

"Sure," he said easily. "I saw a picture of Kendall Casablancas in the paper. It's interesting, she looks a lot like my first girlfriend, back in high school, Cordelia Chase. Oh, they're definitely not the same, my Cordy was a lot classier, she came from a higher strata of society and I could see the from newspaper picture that Kendall came from a trailer park. In school Cordelia was often referred to as Queen C, she had vanity plates on her car that said 'Queen C', and oddly enough, later on she actually became a real queen, for a few weeks in a land far away—that's a story for another time though. But, the resemblance between the two is remarkable."

"Are you trying to make me jealous or something?" I asked, a little snarkily I fear.

"No, of course not. We both have histories Veronica. After all, you've been telling me stories of your sex life with the heir to one of the richest fortunes in America, and you've tumbled around with the son of one of the most notorious movie stars in America. Understand that I never slept with Cordelia, we didn't feel ready at the time, although you probably don't want to know abut my fantasy life. Our idea of sex was groping fully clothed in the janitor's closet, although we did graduate to her car in lover's lane later on we never really progressed very far sexually. Of course Anya made up for what I missed with Cordy, but you've got it all over me when it comes to a past, and your past is way shorter than mine."

"That's not really fair," I said, working hard to keep from getting upset.

"It's OK Veronica, I'm just summarizing here. And come to think of it, you're right, I was a being little unfair. So, where was I? Oh yeah, Cordy and me had been an item back in high school for what seemed like forever, but was really only a few months. Until one day, Willow and I were kidnapped by a vampire, a crazy vampire who wanted to force Willow into doing a love spell for him, so he could get back together with his psychotic vampire-girl-friend. He clocked me over the head with what felt like an anvil so I was concussed and half out of it, when Willow became convinced that we were gonna die. So she kissed me."

Xander sighed deeply and continued, "That's all it took. Oz and Cordy were on a mission to find us, and the perversity of fate caused them to walk in and rescue us at that very moment. Cordy really overreacted, she..."

I had to interrupt, "What a minute, who's Oz?"

"Willow's boyfriend."

"Willow had a boyfriend?" I asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, she was heterosexual back then."

"I didn't think it worked that way."

"Yeah well, between you and me, I think Willow protests too much when she claims to be gay, I think she's as bisexual as a lizard."

"Are lizards bisexual?"

"Aren't they? Or maybe they can change sex or something."

"That's called behavioral sex change and it's far more common in invertebrates. Not many lizards but some amphibians and even a few birds have been observed..."

"It doesn't matter," Xander interrupted me hastily and a little testily, "the point is, Cordelia cut me off, with no attempt to see any viewpoint but her own. Oz was a little kinder to Willow, he left her hanging for a few weeks and then reconciled."

"So what's your point?" I asked, it being my turn to be testy.

"Well uh, I have several points. One, if you ever think I'm cheating on you, please step back and ask me, because I work with girls and young women all day, every day, it's part of my job. And if you ever believe that I am carrying on with one of them, you'd be wrong because it's not in me to sneak around behind your back. And I really don't want to see you jealous, it doesn't look good on anyone."

"OK, I can see that, you've got my word. Besides, we'll pretty much have to trust each other when we're half a continent away from each other." Although I did wonder if that was going to be easier said than done.

"The second point is that, looking back soberly from a more mature viewpoint, and years after Cordy died and I have nothing to prove..."

I couldn't help it, I had to interrupt again, "Wait, wait, she died?"

"Yes, that's another story that's too long to go into right now, it had something to do with that week long blackout in LA a couple of years ago. The thing is, Cordelia really did overreact, she had nothing to be jealous of, but she nearly died trying to get away from me. Her real problem was self-esteem, she really thought that I made her look bad in front of her friends, and that the Willow-kissage would get around and make her look a fool. She couldn't put up with that. Look, I know Willow and I were in the wrong, but all Cordy could see was betrayal—she couldn't see that there are degrees and circumstances. Oddly enough, the results of Cordy's hardheaded stance made a vengeance demon visit her, and that vengeance demon was trapped in human time and space by one Rupert Giles, and I nearly married her."

"Wow," I said, "that's a, I don't quite know what to say." I really didn't know what to say, especially since I was more inclined to be sympathetic to the dead and buried Cordelia than the cheating Xander and Willow. But maybe you had to be there, so I would give Xander the benefit of the doubt. And I suppose, if you looked at the story from the male viewpoint, it really wasn't that big a deal, but still.

I asked, "But what does your story have to do with me?"

"Well, uh, I guess not too much. Except how we react to others is deeply rooted within ourselves. All right, I know that's kind of obvious, but sometimes we have to say it out loud."

"Well, yeah. But I still don't see a parallel unless you think your actions were the same as Logan's."

"No, no, that's not it all. I just think that you may have overreacted, like Cordelia overreacted, that's all," he said. I could see that Xander was struggling with explaining his point.

"So, what do you want me to say?"

"There's only one thing I want you to say Veronica, I want you to admit to yourself why you verbally castrated your ex-boyfriend. That you have feelings for him as well as for me, that you have doubts about your actions. That your marriage was sudden and unexpected and this gives you an insecure feeling."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked, more than a little upset.

"Partially, anyway. You know we had a rocky start. But you also know that you and I seem to be a good fit. Amazingly enough, I feel that I went to bed drunk and woke up married to the girl of my dreams, or the girl who would have been my dreamgirl if I lnew her beforehand."

"Wow, I'm glad you said that because I've been thinking pretty much the same. So what's this garbage about thinking I'm insecure?"

"Veronica, Veronica, I'm just saying your sudden and unexpected major life change is bound to leave a few unresolved, and possibly incomplete and maybe some slightly insecure feelings, that's all. This is stuff we can work through, not a big deal. In fact, I think if we used the classic male solution it'd all just go away."

"Classic male solution?" I repeated, "what, ignore it and all the bad stuff disappears?"

"You got it!" he said happily, "we're gonna do just fine."

"Xander, you're the one that started this conversation."

"Yeah, and it's got deeper than I wanted to go. But I'm OK now if you're OK."

Well, I wasn't. I really needed to talk out my feelings more, and we really made progress, too. But I could see that the classic male response was in full operation now. Sigh, I don't suppose it would really work, but maybe I could try again later.

Still, wonder of wonders, it looks like Xander is right, I fooled myself, and I hid it deep. And I owe Logan a huge apology, one he most likely won't accept.

"Does it get any easier?"

He shook his head in a motion that could be interpreted as either a yes or no, then picked up his report. This time he seemed to be able to get into it.

I leaned back on the couch and after a minute or two I started to sing:

_Turn me on, turn me on_

_Just do it right - you can't go wrong_

_I'm the radio that plays your favorite song_

_You turn me on, turn me on_

_You sure know how - so turn me on_

_Baby don't you wait until the night has gone_

_Just turn me on..._

That's all it took to get him to hop in bed with me. Go figure.

--- ---

"OK," I said to Mac, Dawn, and Willow several hours later, "let's look at this prophecy again:

_And woe be unto the tide of humanity,_

_If the newest slayer of the nightbeast arises _

_In the city of sinful paradise of the desert,_

_And is taken by the last vampire of the light,_

_And she shall be turned to the night,_

_Unless the cruc..._

And the other one:

_And a great darkness will fall upon the earth and the skies above and the caves below while the turned Warrior of the Gods extinguishes all that is good and worthy and worships her enemies._

First, is there any possibility of finding the rest of the prophecy?"

Willow looked thoughtful and the rest of us looked at Willow. Apparently, she was the only one with an opinion that counted. Eventually, she said, "Welllll, maybe I could cast a spell."

"Really," I asked, "you can do that?"

"Possibly, I would have to come up with something that used the Law of Relevance combined with the Law of Synecdoche. See, Relevance by itself does nothing for us because we don't have anything with the relevant words on it. But the Law of Synecdoche says that the part is equal to the whole and vice-versa. But, the two together in an appropriate venue should, in theory, rebuild the page. It is, however, a complex spell, one that will takes hours to prepare for and many hours to complete."

"So let's do it!"

"Hmmm, I'll start scouring the Internet for the necessary materials, it'll probably take a few days." said Willow.

"OK, any more ideas? Thoughts? Because I gotta tell you, I still think it's a crock," I said with a little grin to take the sting off.

Willow looked me thoughtfully and asked, "Why Veronica?"

"Because the Ancient Sumerian's were not known for their astronomical expertise, and for this prophecy to apply to us here and now is really a stretch."

Willow said, "Well, we've gotten some good warnings from the Codex before. Now in theory, it's supposed to be perfect, but in fact, it's always been a little hazy."

Dawn spoke up, "Veronica is absolutely right, you know. I've read the entire surviving extent of Sumerian writings, there isn't squat about astronomy. They did observe the stars, of course, but it's all constellations and superstitious stuff. Oh, they knew enough to predict the seasons, they understood the cycles of the moon, but that was about it. Even if a very smart Sumer person had come up with the correct explanation, they still wouldn't be able to calculate eclipses in their own backyard, much less on the other side of the world, because they just didn't understand it in practice plus their arithmetic was limited by the lack of a zero. And the multiple translations problem that Giles mentioned is actually far more worrying—we don't even know who did the translating and thus we cannot compare or judge how good a job they did."

"Hmmph," said Mac, "The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference, but in practice, there is. And what that means, my new and dear friends, is that we don't know fuck-all about this."

Willow laughed delightedly, "Oh, we could argue this for a long time. Unfortunately, we don't have a long time. The one thing left out of your ever-so erudite and undoubtedly correct but incomplete analysis, is magic. Which does tend to throw a spanner into the works."

"What's a spanner?"

"A tool, a type of wrench, Dawn," replied Mac.

Willow continued Mac's thought, "If you throw a big enough spanner wrench into a set of running gears, everything breaks, hence the phrase."

"So if we assume that the prophecy is essentially correct, then we want to find all the Slayers in Nevada. So, why don't we do a locater spell for Slayers?" asked Dawn, "I mean, that'll be easy, right?"

"Sure Dawn, in fact, I've already done it." And she proceeded to pull out a large rolled up sheet of thick artist's paper from her large bag. She unrolled it, said some something in Latin, and a half dozen sparkles showed up. "Now, all we need is a map and I can superimpose them."

"Uh," I asked, boggled, "how do you superimpose them?"

"Oh, it's just like using layers in Photoshop, except with magic." She said that as if to a child—I decided not to take umbrage because I was ignorant of magic.

"So," I said, "we're just gonna accept this wild prophecy? Objections or not?"

"Well," said Dawn, "we aren't going to bet our lives on it being one hundred percent accurate. But we are going to hedge our bets, cover our asses, get some insurance, buy some puts, or is it calls? Whatever, ..."

I interrupted her, "OK OK, I get it. That seems like a good plan. Err, but what is the plan?"

"Simple," said Willow, "we locate all local slayers, gather them in one place, and watch them."

"Sounds good, in theory," I said without letting my doubt show much.

"Well there's three Slayers next door, so we're halfway there already," said Dawn, practically.

--- ---

"Hey Trina! How's Logan today? You did see him right?" I asked after I found Trina skulking in the hall near our suite.

"Yeah, after your call last night I checked on him, he's OK."

"So how about this morning, did you check on him this morning?"

"No, but he's with Du-uh-ugg, Doug, he's in Doug's suite."

"Doug? Who's Doug?" I asked, with a sinking feeling.

"Oh, you know, Doug, one of his oh-niner friends, I don't think he went to your school though, he went to a boarding school."

"Trina, stop lying to me. You started to say Duncan, didn't you, well?"

"Duncan? Pish tosh, I don't where Duncan is, really Veronica, you've got such an imagination!"

"Tell me which suite or I'll set Willow on you!" I let my voice fall to a whisper, which forced Trina to lean in and listen carefully.

"Penthouse, Suite B," Trina said quickly. I guess she must not be feeling all puppies and love for Willow.

"Is anyone else there? Say, any members of his family?"

"No, just Duncan and Logan, just like old times. And maybe some of your more professional girls, but they're probably gone by now."

--- ---

I knocked on the door of Suite B, a little nervously I must confess. I wanted to do this alone, but in my new capacity as a happily married woman, I decided it would be better to have Xander with me while I confronted my previous lovers, and Xander thought it would be wise to have backup, and since my dog was back in Neptune, he brought Buffy. Well, that was a bitchy thought, and I didn't really mean it, I just missed Backup. Actually, I was having doubts about the wisdom of this meeting, and I really wanted to back out, but we needed information.

Naturally, it seemed prudent to let Buffy stand in front of the door's peephole. I figured if Logan looked, he'd surely be intrigued enough by a beautiful short blond to open up, if it were Duncan, perhaps the same, or simple politeness. Either way, it worked, the door swung open and Buffy pushed her way in with me and Xander swinging in behind her from the sides.

Logan had opened the door. He looked at me with a bleak expression. He asked me, "So Ronnie, you gonna gut me with a knife now? It would hurt less."

"No, no, Logan, no. I owe you an apology, but I don't know how to do it, yet. Apparently, I have some pent-up feelings and I took it out on you."

"Ya think?"

"Yes, but, I am staying married to Xander for the foreseeable future."

Logan looked at me. His expression softened a little, not a lot, just a little. He stepped back and from behind him came Duncan.

"V-v-v-eronica! What are you doing here?" he asked nervously.

"Hey Duncan, long time no see, how's Meg junior? Are you out of your frickin' mind? What the hell are you doing here!" My voice went up, getting more unsteady and louder until I was nearly shouting at the end. Sigh, I really need to work on my self control.

"I was blackmailed," he said with a hangdog expression.

"OK, maybe you had a good reason. But, you will have to come clean with us."

"And who exactly are all these people? And why should I add more people to the list of potential blackmailers?" asked Duncan.

Logan just had to interrupt my answer with, "Oh Duncan, this is Veronica's new," and he paused here just to build the suspense for Duncan a little, "husband."

"Oh," he said, "uh, I guess congratulations are in order."

_Well!_ I thought to myself, that was an understated reaction. Somehow I thought there would more thunder and lightning when the love of my life discovered I had moved on. It did seem a good idea to keep a lid on my reaction to Duncan's reaction though.

"Duncan," I asked, interrupting the whole not-to-the-point discussion, "do your parents know you're in town?"

"No, I don't think so."

"How about Clarence Weidman?"

"Oh sure, he helped get back here."

"Did you know your parents are here in Las Vegas, even as we speak?"

"Urk? Ah, no, I didn't."

"They're in town for Comdex of course, how could you not know? You're dad has, or had, some big announcement that's guaranteed to set the computer world on fire. And you didn't know about it?" I was getting snippy with him.

"I'm a Federal fugitive on the run, Veronica, there are warrants for my arrest in most of the countries of the free world; I don't pay much attention to the news these days."

"I assume that Clarence fronts you money as needed?"

"Yes, and passes messages along."

"If Clarence knows you are in town, then your dad knows too, and if he knows then your mother knows. I mean, you must know that."

"Oh no, I don't think so, Clarence said he'd keep quiet, and I believe him."

"Yes, and pigs can fly by the light of a full moon." Duncan gave me his _I'm lost_ look. I had forgotten that expression; how a guy could be as smart as him and yet be perpetually puzzled is beyond me. I made the right decision, husbandwise.

Naturally someone knocked on the door at just that moment. Buffy looked through the peephole and said, "Some woman, do'kno who."

Logan looked and said, "There she is, Celeste in all her glory. Boy, does she ever look pissed-off."

I had to say it, "When does she ever **not** look pissed-off?" Getting no answer to that I continued, "I do not want her to know I know you're here Duncan. That would cause me no end of trouble, where can we hide?"

Buffy ordered us into position, "You two, in that bedroom, leave the door halfway open and sit in the closet. I'll stay out here, she doesn't know me and likely never will." As Buffy shooed me and Xander into the bedroom, she turned to Logan and said, "And you, keep quiet or I'll hurt you." I could hear Logan's little gasp of shock when Buffy twisted his arm a little, then I heard the door open Buffy and asked, "May I help you ma'am?" in the most impersonal but polite tone of voice I had ever heard from Buffy.

"Get the hell out my way, I want to talk to my son!" came the less than dulcet voice of Celeste Kane.

I heard an interesting oomph sound, followed by Buffy saying, "I'm so sorry about that, I'll need to see some identification before I can allow you in."

Then Duncan spoke up, "Mom, what are you doing here? You can let her in. Sorry mom, this is my new bodyguard."

I really wish I could have seen Celeste's expression as she took in Duncan's 'bodyguard', but then I wondered why did Duncan introduce Buffy like that? He should have had no knowledge of Buffy Summer's supernatural power, and yet his extemporaneous comment suggested he did—I would certainly be questioning Duncan some more as soon as I could get the chance. A glance over at Xander showed me he saw the same question as I had.

The rest of the conversation was fairly predictable, and really not very interesting. Celeste was unhappy with Duncan's actions and kept trying to blame me, but Duncan wouldn't let her and took all the credit, etc. etc. She went on and on about how he ruined his life, blah blah blah, it would be so hard to fix, blah blah blah, why did you do it, blah blah blah, it's all Veronica's fault, blah blah blah, except the part which was Meg's fault, blah blah blah. I couldn't help but notice that she never managed to find that any part of it was in any way Duncan's fault, even though he had to play a pretty important role in getting Meg pregnant. Unless Duncan suddenly had to raise money by contributing to a sperm bank. Doesn't seem reasonable, does it? Eventually, I had to tune out Celeste, either that or turn to thoughts of murder in the first degree which I didn't want to do because that family had already suffered enough from murder.

Eventually she left, but only because she didn't want to be late for an appointment. When I heard the door shut I turned and gave Xander a big ol' lip-lock. When I pulled back to breathe I said, "Thanks for helping me put up with this crap."

His smile made feel like fireworks were going off inside me.

We went back out into the living room and I glared at Duncan. In fact, Buffy was looking at him with her head cocked, and Xander had a good glare going too. Duncan said, "Uh, why's everyone looking at me like that?"

I said, "Logan, would you give us some privacy please?"

But it was Duncan who said, "No, he stays. He knows everything that I know."

"So, why don't you tell me what you know? And start at the beginning please." We all made ourselves comfortable, Logan even passed out some beer from the honor bar.

"Molly Fitzpatrick came to me last year, and she came on pretty strong. I think she used some mojo on me, because every time she talked to me I kind of got, well, sort of hazy. So she would come to me, I would follow her to a hotel or motel, and then Molly turned into someone else, I don't know how or who, someone older."

"Someone named Casablancas, perhaps?" I asked acerbically.

"No, well once maybe, but usually it was someone older, still beautiful in a sharp cheekbone kind of way, but older. It was all so fuzzy that I mostly didn't even think about it. It happened five, maybe ten times. And each time I delivered something to her, money I guess, maybe jewelry. I did spend a little time with Molly, but I didn't sleep with her, really I didn't."

"Yeah, just her mother, I suppose, or aunt or older sister. Whoever it was, they really did put the whammy on you, I guess I can't blame you much for this. So tell me this, why did you introduce Buffy as your bodyguard?"

"Well, after Buffy put an armlock on Logan, then my mom, I pretty much had to. But I know that Ms. Summers is something called a Slayer. Molly warned me about her, and warned me to stay away from her in no uncertain terms. But I don't know why."

"And what did Molly have on you to get you to risk imprisonment in a Federal pen? You know, they don't let kidnappers serve their time in one on those tennis club prisons. You definitely run the risk of becoming some enormous man's honey."

Duncan looked disgusted at that thought. "Well, she said she had proof that you helped me kidnap baby Lilly, I don't know what evidence, but she said she would go public if I didn't get my ass over here. But she hasn't contacted me yet, so I now don't know what to think."

"Luckily, I do know what to think, and what I think is that you were suckered. Although I do thank you for risking your freedom for me—you should have talked to me first, because I can tell you that Molly doesn't have jackshit on me, or anyone else, because if she did, she would have come after me instead of trying to kill me. Also, Molly is probably dead, I don't know if her remains have been identified yet, but it's most likely her."

"Uh, what?" Logan and Duncan asked almost simultaneously.

Buffy explained about the whole unsuccessful spell casting thing and I must say, Logan and Duncan took it well, even if they were perplexed.

It became obvious that neither of the boys had anything particularly constructive to add, so we left. I said to Buffy and Xander, "I'm starting to get my decision tree trimmed down to something reasonable. In fact, I believe I know what happened and more importantly, what's going to happen."

As we walked down the hall, Xander said, "Spill, inquiring minds want to know."

"I'm not ready yet, there's still too many loose ends to tie up. And, before I start casting aspersions about, I really need more information."

"So what's next?"

"I think we need to break in to the coroner's office. Unless Willow already did—I need to see that coroner's report. And maybe we should investigate Wolfram and Hart's local office now."

"Hmm," said Buffy, "that could be a tough nut to crack."

--- ---

Most everyone had returned to the suite, we all sat around the living room and caught each other up on our research, fact-finding, and hypothesis, except I still kept most of my conclusions to myself. I know, I know, I should trust people more, but the old habit of staying close-mouthed until I could actually start to prove things was hard to break. And, oh yeah, room service lunch. I wondered briefly who was paying for all this largess, it must be expensive, but it sure was good. After the food arrived we decided to discuss non-business stuff by mutual silent agreement, I guess 24 hours of demon killing would tire almost anyone. So someone brought up the enforced singing thing everyone had to endure a few years ago. I remembered that, there was a short piece in the newspaper about Sunnydale's sing-along day. The article was a humorous piece of course, treating the whole thing as if it were a big joke. I didn't know any better until Xander clued me in, but it still sounded intriguing. Well, except for the demon from hell part.

"Ahhh," said Xander, "you should here Veronica sing, she truly sounds like an angel."

"Oh Xander," I said almost blushing, "thank you, but really, a lot people can sing. I'm not that special."

"But there is something special about your voice, whenever you open your mouth I get turned on," he said.

Followed by a moment of stunned silence.

"XANDER!" I said while I punched him in the shoulder, "that's private stuff!"

"Oh god, I didn't mean it the way it sounded, I meant her singing, not... Veronica, it was a slip of the tongue."

He looked so woebegone that I just had to laugh, and so did everyone else, especially Willow for some reason.

--- ---

"Where the hell is this girl?" I exclaimed for umpteenth time, "Slayers shouldn't be this hard to find!" Xander, Kennedy, and I were slogging down a wet and muddy alley, looking for anyplace that might be inhabited. This was in a section of town that apparently had building codes that allowed only warehouses, because we were surrounded by a veritable sea of super-sized rectangular metal buildings. Several times during our wanderings we had to hide from patrolling cops, the last time in a dumpster. I was still awfully put out about that one since it turned out to be behind the only non-warehouse in miles—turns out warehouse workers like to eat lunch, too. And the weather! Shit and damnation, it isn't supposed to rain in the desert! But I guess Las Vegas gets most of their annual precipitation in one day, and this was the day. We were all soaked to the skin, I'm pretty sure I looked like a drowned dog. Xander was trying to keep me warm, and that was to the good. But Kennedy didn't seem to care, she was like a leopard or a hunter stalking though the wet night. To tell the truth, she impressed me. We had heard from Willow and Buffy a few minutes earlier, they had successfully concluded their mission; so it was five down and one to go.

Kennedy suddenly paused, she looked around and nearly sniffed the air, but maybe my imagination was working overtime. She started to warn us of something when a bedraggled wet girl jumped off the building behind us and landed in our midst. She started to stab me with a stake, which I would have been entirely unable to avoid, when she stopped in mid-thrust. Leaving me with my mouth hanging open like an total moron. Kennedy tackled her from behind and they went rolling though the mud and water: mud-wrestling—they could have charged a pretty penny for it in a bar. Xander watched carefully and when Kennedy had her opponent immobilized for a moment, Xander struck with my Taser. She went out like a light and Kennedy flung her over her shoulder in a fireman's carry and we ran for the car. By the time we got there, Xand and I were exhausted and more than ready for a little heat. Kennedy jumped in the back with our latest slayer. Xander got behind the wheel, I said, "Kennedy? Will you be able to keep control of this slayer when she wakes up?" I looked back and saw the new girl had her eyes open. "Eeep!"

The new Slayer said, "NO!" and tried to reverse headbutt Kennedy while slamming her elbow into poor Kennedy's liver. Luckily, Ken had plenty of training and even more practice, turned out she was ready and was able to twist sideways and grab hold of her opponents hands while avoiding her strikes. Xander handed me the taser and I apologetically zapped her again.

Kennedy sighed heavily and said, "Wow, she's really gonna trust us now, not!"

"We'll see what happens after she meets the rest of the Slayers. And in the meantime, I don't know about the rest of you," I said, "but I'm ready for a hot shower, at least as soon as we get the new girl somewhere safe and calmed down." Xander grinned at me. I returned a lusty smile.

--- ---

"Xander," I said while warm water and soap suds cascaded over our naked bodies, "why do you spend so much effort trying to keep your eyes open in the shower? Always pushing soap aside and peering down. Always watching the drain like you're expecting a monster to materialize right at your feet."

Xander looked at me with his crooked little smile that still hadn't lost its astonishing affect on my libido. "Well," he said slowly, " it's kind of a secret."

"Do tell, I love secrets," I whispered in his ear and simultaneously allowed my left hand to drag along his chest while my right hand stroked the small of his back.

"Veronica Harris loves secrets, I never would have guessed."

I punched his shoulder.

"Ow, OK, but you gotta promise not to tell, especially Willow or Buffy."

"Cross my heart and hope to die, I won't tell anyone isn't showering or sleeping with me."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, "That's uh, well OK."

He paused to gather his thoughts so I prodded him and said, " C'mon, we don't have all night."

"We don't? The water never runs out nor runs cold in the holo-shower, unless we program it to of course."

"Xanderrrrrr!" I said with a little whine, then he stroked my chest and I closed my eyes.

"OK Veronica, it's like this. When I was a teenager, still in junior high, I was terrified of spiders. I know, I know, that seems so prosaic for a guy who's faced some of the things I've faced. But it's true, I was scared shitless of the little critters. Or big critters, really. I let the little ones live, but once they started getting bigger than a quarter I began quivering and looking around for suitable weapons. Still do really."

"A vampire hunter with arachnophobia? I never would have expected it."

"Yeah, there were a couple of times back in High School – well never mind, I'll tell you those stories later. Back to the shower. See, at the time my parents had remodeled the basement to be semi-habitable. This was before I moved in down there and started paying rent. But sometimes I used the basement facilities to get away from my drunken relatives. So one morning Mom, Dad and Uncle Rory were in full belting-out-songs-after-a-night-of-drinking mode so I went downstairs to take a shower in the relative peace of the basement. I was washing my hair, my eyes closed, suds all over my head, when I suddenly felt the urgent need to see again and splashed water over my face and squinted my eyes open, you know, how anyone does when there's shampoo suds all over their head, right?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"So I look down between my feet – and here I have to point out that the shower in the basement was built over the existing basement floor drain. You know, one of those six inch diameter cast iron things with the 1/2" x 1" grooves in them, you know what I mean?"

"Yes Xander, I have seen floor drains before," I said patiently.

"OK, so I look down and see mounds of soap suds rushing around my feet and swirling down the drain, but there's something funny down there in the suds—some of the suds didn't seem to be moving the same direction as the rest. I couldn't quite tell what it was at first, 'cause of all the soap you see, but finally, as the water started to clear away the suds, I realized that I was looking at the biggest damn spider I had ever seen, outside of a zoo anyway, struggling to pull itself up out of one of those slots. It was mostly out by then, too. I mean, that sucker was as big as my hand, and just fractions of an inch away from my big toes. Well, as you can imagine, I flipped out and went straight through the shower curtain; little hooks and plastic went flying in all directions. Of course I slipped and crashed on the floor, then skidded into the wall hard enough to knock over some boxes stored on shelves above which landed all over my unprotected body."

I laughed, but added, "Oh, you didn't hurt anything important did you?"

"Nothing but my pride. So I struggled to my feet, slipping and sliding on the wet and soapy floor. I admit I was frantic as I wildly grabbed for a broom and started smashing the horrible thing in my shower. I was so terrified that I actually broke the broom handle, but I managed to kill it in the end, finally, and calm my wildly pounding heart."

"Oh, my poor Xanderman," I said while stroking his stomach. I guided his hands to my waist since he had started to wave them around to illustrate his story, and I preferred him touching me.

"Ever since then," he continued, "I've been afraid of closing my eyes in the shower, silly, I know, but there you go. Especially silly when you consider the fact the poor spider was probably nearly dead from being half drowned and was just trying to get to someplace dry."

"So have you learned anything since the great shower attack?"

"Sure, if I saw a giant spider today I'd just set about slaying it calmly and with deliberation, you know, if Buffy wasn't around."

I laughed and squeezed him tightly to me; I could feel his laughter through his chest, bubbling up from deep within. A man who could laugh at his own foibles, I wondered again how I got so lucky. "So, any other phobias that I should know about?"

"Um, praying mantises, or is it mantissi?"

"You're afraid of stick insects?"

"Yeah, terrified," he said with a faraway look, "maybe someday I'll tell you why, but that story is far more embarrassing than the sudsy spider."

"Um, Xander, what are you doing now?" He was leaning over my shoulder and looking closely down my back. My face was kind of squashed up against his chest, not that I minded.

"I do believe that I've found six square inches of your skin that I haven't examined closely, or tasted, which I am now correcting."

"Xander, you goof, you know very well that haven't missed even one square inch of my skin, come on now."

"Are you sure?" he asked from behind my back, his voice slightly distorted by the water streaming over us, "because I could swear I don't recognize this patch, the way your spine curves here, this inconspicuous but sexy little mole..."

"Sexy mole? I don't have any moles, they wouldn't dare. Besides, I know for a fact that you have been extremely thorough in your investigation of my less-than-virginal body," I said as he continued his explorations down my back.

"Then I guess this is a do-over."

"Mmmm..." I said, as we descended into non-verbal communication.

TBC

_Footnote:_

_ Law of Relevance and a few other magical 'Laws'. This idea was 'borrowed' (in the sense that I used it without permission) from a story in Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series: _The Muddle of the Woad

_This has given me a great idea for a new cross-over. Sigh, perhaps after I finish most of my other dozen or so WIPs._

_General Notes:_

_In the previous chapter I failed to note that Mac was singing _21st Century Digital Girl_ by Groove Coverage. _

_In this chapter Veronica sings _Turn Me On_ by E-rotic._

_The plot is moving at a glacial pace while I spend time on the feelings and personal relationships of the main character. This is not my usual practice, and is probably due to my decision to tell this story exclusively from Veronica's POV. I do wonder if I should speed it up or not._

_STF_


	8. Chapter 8

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_**Chapter 8**_

_The Prophetic Connection Part II_

--August 2006--

"_And a great darkness will fall upon the earth and the skies above and the caves below while the turned Warrior of the Gods extinguishes all that is good and worthy and worships her enemies,"_

I read to my assembled gang. "Even though I think it's all a crock, we should at least try to avoid this, you know, if it turns out not to be a crock."

Everyone agreed with me.

"So, what do we do next?" asked Xander.

"Willow?" I said, "what do you need for this completion spell?"

"Well," said Willow, "I've been researching and for this to work, we need to find a woodworker who can make a barrel 'of deal' whatever that is, and it is to be exactly one cubit plus one hand long, and have a diameter of a two spans. You have any idea at all what that means?"

"Well," said Xander, "_deal_ is a British word that refers to pine or fir, which seems unusual to me because I didn't think either one is a suitable wood for barrels, but what do I know, I'm not a cooper. The other stuff is pretty darn obscure."

"Oh, oh!" said Dawn excitedly, "I know this one! A cubit is three shaftments! I saw it in old book just the other day."

Everyone looked at Dawn with raised eyebrows, "And that helps just how?" asked Xander.

"All we have to do is find out how big a shaftment is," Dawn replied.

Willow said, "I saw a reference to a shaftment once, I think its the distance from thumb to finger if you hold your hand outstretched."

Xander held up his hand and stretched out his fingers, I held my hand up to his—the difference was quite large. Xander said eying our hands, "So, we have either five inches, or eight inches. I think it's time to hit Wikipedia."

Mac looked up from her laptop a few minutes later and said, "Well, a shaftment is 'approximately' six inches, a cubit is three..." she stopped as she noticed a distinct lack of anyone paying attention to the details of ancient measurements and concluded, "it's twenty-one inches long by eighteen inches in diameter. More or less."

We all looked at Xander as if we expected him to pull a barrel of such dimensions out of his ass. Xander said, "Why are you all looking at me? I'd need a shop to build this thing, and, you know, tools. None of which I have with me. And besides, just because I can build a dining room table or install a window doesn't mean I know how to make a barrel. We need to find an old cooper."

"And just where are we going to find such a person in Las Vegas?" I asked, "I mean, maybe in Virginia where they still use wooden barrels to make whiskey, but here in the land of Gila Monsters and card sharks?"

"Actually," said Xander, "they use wood barrels in California wine country, and we're not all that far from there. Mac? I think you could solve our problem with an Internet search."

"Yeah," said Xander, "but let's start by searching Lawn and Garden Centers, if we can find a barrel to buy it'd be a lot faster than custom built; that would probably take months."

--- ---

A day later we had everything we needed. It turned out that we found a garden center that had a bunch of wood barrels of a variety of sizes, one of which was perfect for our needs. I watched as Willow carefully prepared her spell and then we all took turns hand cranking the barrel that had been mounted on a modified barbecue spit, without the fire of course. Willow had carefully installed the partial paper inside the barrel with the prophecy on it, along with a appropriate amount of finely ground paper and even finer ground dried black ink. And boy, getting the barrel easy compared to finding someone to grind paper and dried ink for us. She put some herbs in a brass crucible and lit it, and then chanted something in Latin. She even used an ebony and silver wand to produce magical symbols in the air, and this was enough to get the spell started. After hours of cranking, (and very careful switchovers of crankers to keep the velocity constant) Willow finally pronounced it done. She carefully the top, pulled on a pair of gloves, and carefully reached into the barrel and pulled out what looked like a complete sheet of paper. Then, using extreme care, she laid it down on a table that was prepared for photography.

Xander walked in right when Willow got the barrel opened. He glanced over my shoulder at the now complete page and said, "Well then, that was pretty easy, wasn't it?"

"Oh yeah," said Willow facetiously, "in the sense that when you do things right, people won't be sure if you did anything at all, to quote a character, I forget which one, from Futurama. I assure you Xand, it wasn't easy. Now, we have to be very careful here, this is just a whole lot of ground paper and ground ink held together with a spell and a prayer. If somebody breathes on this too hard it will fall apart. And only touch it while wearing gloves. Veronica? Is your camera ready? Yes? OK, everybody hold your positions and hold your breaths."

I checked the focus and snapped off a dozen shots at a variety of exposures. Dawn looked over my other shoulder and attempted to read it. Then I turned on two floodlamps and took some more shots. I started to move one of the lights closer, but an errant breeze or something, perhaps along with the extra heat from the lamps, caused the magicked part of the paper to instantly fall to pieces, extremely tiny pieces which mostly blew away with the breeze, very much like vampire dust, leaving only the original fragment.

"Well," said Willow, "that's that. Did you get anything Dawn?"

"Yep," said Dawn, "this is a rough translation which I'll refine when Veronica prints out some pictures, but its something like:

_And woe be unto the tide of humanity,_

_If the newest slayer of the nightbeast arises _

_In the city of sinful paradise of the desert,_

_And is taken by the last vampire of the light,_

_And she shall be turned to the night,_

_Unless the cruciamentium is performed _

_Without her foreknowledge and_

_During a blue moon then shall she _

_Be spared the turning against the ascended."_

"Huh," said Giles with a frown, "that's unusually clear for a prophecy."

"Yeah," agreed Buffy, "and it really pisses me off."

I shook my head and said, "Guys, look, I know you all have a real blind spot for this Codex thing, but seriously? I'm having a hard time believing any of this. First of all, you expect me to believe that the first four letters of this word, cruciamentium, is the same in both English and whatever cuneiform language it was translated from?"

"Well actually," said Dawn, "this translation is one of several interim translations and it's Latin, and it happens that cruciamentium is a Latin word. So, yeah, it works."

"Oh, OK, I stand corrected. Now, how about the phrase 'blue moon'. Now, I realize that it refers to an astronomical observation of full moons, but did you know that there are two possible definitions? Which one is it: the third full moon in a three-month calendrical season that has four full moons, or, the second of two full moons occurring in the same month. The latter definition is more modern than the first, but the translators could have translated it wrong."

"Uh," said Giles, "that's a good question. Willow and Dawn, would you research it please?"

They both looked quite happy at the assignment. Dawn immediately dived into the books she had at hand and handed a couple off to Willow.

"Finally, would anyone care to explain it to me this cruciamentium thing?"

"Yeah," said Buffy with a look that could scorch concrete, "it's a crude old ceremony that often ended in the death of eighteen year old Slayers, as if a Slayer's normal night-to-night activity wasn't dangerous enough. The old Watcher's would secretly inject their oh-so-trusting Slayer with a formula that temporarily removes Slayer strength, then they would lock now weakened Slayer in a house or building with a vampire. If she was smart enough, lucky enough, and resourceful enough to defeat the vampire using her wits and whatever weapons she found at hand, she survived and passed the test. Otherwise, the reward for years of lonely and dangerous service to the council was gruesome death."

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed, outraged, "that's barbaric!" I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Giles was looking unusually embarrassed. I wondered at what. Then I noticed that Buffy wasn't looking in Giles direction. Then it hit me. "Oh hell, Buffy, did you go through that? Mr. Giles? You did that to Buffy? Hell, you guys really play hardball!" No wonder Giles flinched when Buffy said 'trusting Slayer'.

"It wasn't one of my finest hours," said Giles, "made particularly galling since Buffy passed the test, but I didn't. That's when the Council fired me."

I said, "So failed Slayers rest easy in their graves while the failed Watchers are forced to go out and look for a new job—must be tough, huh? And now you, Mr. Giles, finding yourself in charge of the whole enchilada, have deleted the cruciamentium from the curriculum, and now you may have to do it again on an unsuspecting and already distrustful young woman who we are trying to convince that we really meant well when we Tasered and kidnapped her. If she survives this, she's gonna trust the Watcher's Council about as far as, well I can't think of a good metaphor, but I suspect it will be difficult to measure her goodwill towards any of us. And all this on the advice of a five or six thousand year old prophecy which might or might not be a crock of shit."

"Yeah," said Buffy glumly, "that sounds about right."

"You guys do things like this a lot?" I asked, wondering just how crazy my new friends were.

"Well, yeah."

"You want my advice?" I asked.

"Sure," said Buffy, "might not follow it, but we want to hear it."

"OK, you can't tell this girl the specifics of the cruciamentium, if I understand correctly and if I were to buy into this prophecy which I don't but you do so that's that." I paused to take a breath. "But tell her as much as you can without breaking the terms. Tell her there's a prophecy, tell her she's supposed to undergo a dangerous test that you may not describe and you wish you she didn't but, there it is. Then ask her if she is willing. If she is, you're ahead. If she doesn't want to, I guess you can do it anyway without being any worse off, or think of something else."

"Oh sure, that sounds good," said Dawn, "so what do we do if she fails the test?"

Dead silence and expressions of horror filled the room.

--- ---

I was humming _Endless Summer_ quietly to myself as I picked up our mixed clothes from the floor, the chair, under the bed, pretty much scattered all over our bedroom. I paused in bemusement and was contemplating entangled panties and boxer shorts when Xander walked in and asked, "What's that you're humming?"

I told him and sung a few bars:

"_Endless summer; boy I want you close to me _

_In an endless summer; we'll make love and we'll be free _

_It's an endless summer; boy I want you close to me _

_In an endless summer; now it's time for you and me"_

I noticed that Xander was reacting to me or maybe just the song. I still found it kind of amazing, something I never really noticed before with either Duncan or Logan, maybe because I didn't think to sing to either of them. But when I started to sing to Xander, it looked like he got an iron bar—wait, never mind, I'm gonna keep that part to myself.

--- ---

"So, just how certain are we that this Vala Klein is the _newest Slayer of the Nightbeast_, and what could the _vampire of the light_ be referring to, and how can we be certain that we don't trap the _newest slayer_ in a house with the _vampire of the light_? Thus bringing about the very thing we wish to avoid?"

"Damn, Veronica, if you keep asking these pertinent questions, and we answer them all, we might have an easier time than usual to avert the apocalypse," said Willow.

--- ---

"Well this sucks," said Willow forcefully from her laptop, "these CSI people put their confidential reports on a computer that isn't connected to the Internet. Apparently, they have an unconnected private network that only encompasses the labs. They have two completely separate computer systems, and I can't get to the one that has the coroner's reports! I can't understand why those bastards have worked so hard to keep me out of their confidential and private databases."

Kennedy looked up from her self-appointed task of sword polishing and said, "Sweetie, they do it to keep all hackers out, not just you."

"Well dammit," she fumed, "I wish they wouldn't try so hard, it's a waste of taxpayer money to try to keep secrets from me! And besides Ken, use the word cracker, not hacker. I really hate when everyone automatically assumes that hacker mean bad. Hackers are good guys, it's the criminals who try to crack into places they don't belong."

"Like you honey?"

"NO! Not like me," Willow paused and stared at the ceiling for a moment, "well, maybe like me, maybe I am a criminal hacker. But my reasons are good!"

"We know."

Mac peered over Willow's shoulder and frowned at the display. "This is a map of the public network, right?" she asked.

"No, this is the local police department's private network, it's all behind firewalls and supposed to be impervious to hackers."

"And yet, you're in."

"Yeah, I'm a pretty fair cracker," Willow said honestly.

"So what now? Is it possible that the unconnected network could have an archive, NAS, network RAID, or net connected tape backup?"

Willow replied, "I've been searching through the map looking for anything that seems to be extraneous, but so far, no luck."

"Then I guess we need to do a little reconnaissance," I said.

"I don't know Veronica," said Willow, "breaking into a police station seems a little out there, even for us."

"Well I doubt we'll have to break in, they're probably open 24/7, all we really need to do is open the front door and walk through it—it would be nice to have a good reason though."

"Hmmm," mused Willow, "I suppose one of us could report a fake crime of some kind, and then..."

"No, no, Willow," I said, "that won't work. First, you don't even want to fake a crime and try to report it, it would have to be real. And then you'd trap yourself in the middle of an investigation and no one would get anything done. No, what we need to do is go in with a legitimate question or additional information on a crime already under investigation. That get us in for a good reason and doesn't add to anyone's burden."

"Oh," said Mac, "then the obvious thing is to think up something to add to Molly Fitzpatrick's death."

"Not quite," I said, "we need to concentrate on the part that was most closely involved with any of us: Buffy stopping the Fitzpatrick's from escaping should work perfectly. Buffy just needs to walk in and ask if she is needed any more because she wants to go home soon, or something like that. We can go with her to provide support, you know, cuz' she's just a helpless girl in a man's world."

Mac and Willow laughed with me.

--- ---

"I think we need to double check this translation," I said, forcefully.

"What do you mean?" asked Dawn, a little hurt maybe, "you think I mis-translated it? Do you speak Latin any better than me?"

"No, no, no," I said, "I have no opinion about the quality of translations, you're the expert and I bow to your superior expertise. But you said earlier that this is merely an interim translation. So we don't know if the document you translated is an accurate translation of the previous document. We need to find the oldest surviving translation, or original, and redo the completion spell."

"Oh, well that makes sense, and it's a good idea too."

We all argued for quite some time, it seemed that it would be difficult to get any previous translation or original, possible but would take time. Finally, Willow stood up and said, "ENOUGH!"

All of us stared at her.

She said, "There's only one way to get this fast enough, and I think Veronica is absolutely right, we need to verify this prophecy before we try to kill a Slayer. So..."

Everyone groaned when they saw Willow's hair start to turn black. Her eye's became a pool of anti-light and a sourceless wind came up, blowing her hair around as she chanted in a guttural demonic language. Finally, she flung her arms wide and dramatically shouted "REVEAL!" and we heard the crack of thunder and lightning in the room. A flash of light startled me and a scroll appeared in the air, which promptly thumped to the floor. Giles grabbed it.

Willow's hair went back to red, her eye's cleared, and she slumped to the floor, exhausted. "Whew," she said, "now I need to do penance."

"What," I asked, "you're Catholic all of a sudden?"

"No," said Kennedy with a long suffering sigh, "she needs to make up for doing slightly black magic to keep it from returning on her three times worse."

"Yeah," said Willow, "because there were no bad results, just bad methods, I should be OK if I do good deeds for awhile. Kennedy, you want to help me feed the homeless tonight?"

"Oh sure, feeding slop to smelly, hairy, people completely lacking in fashion sense would really make my day," she said as Willow dragged her out of the room.

I looked around in surprise and asked, "What just happened there?"

Dawn told me, "Feeding the homeless is the last thing Kennedy wants to do, but she does like being with Willow no matter what, and so far everything else that Willow devised for her penance is much much worse, so they go to the homeless shelter. Actually, I kinda think Willow does it on purpose to tweak Kennedy's nose a little."

I raised my eyebrows at that.

"Yeah, see, think about it. Think about having sex with a Slayer, any Slayer. Don'tcha think the Slayer would probably end up in control, sooner or later, one way or another, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," I agreed.

"And maybe this way Willow gets to feel a little in control."

Giles meantime had unrolled the scroll on the floor. It was some kind of tanned animal skin, sewn together to make a scroll about ten feet long and averaging about ten inches wide. Dawn and Giles got down on their hands and knees and excitedly started to study the thing, muttering breathlessly to each other in a sort of continuous paroxysm of academic climax.

Finally, Dawn exclaimed, "Hah! Veronica was right!"

Giles nodded agreement. "Indeed. This was a wise course of action."

"So what's it say?" I asked, a little impatiently.

Dawn said, "Well, this is a little rough, but:

_And woe be unto the tide of humanity ..._

blah blah blah, you know this part...

_Unless the _urn_ is filled _

_With the tears of the goddess of the sun_

_During a blue moon then shall she _

_Be spared the loss of worshipers of Ra_

_and all will be fulfilled in the grand city of _

_Merimda Beni Salama by the river of life."_

Giles sighed deeply and shook his head. "Well, that tears it, somebody snookered us but good."

Dawn asked, "According to what I've read, _Merimda Beni Salama_ was just a series of rude mud huts on the Nile delta. How could anyone describe it as 'grand'?"

"At the time Dawn, back at the dawn of time, it was the biggest city in the world. At least that we know of. Remember, that was some six thousand years ago. That's actually one of the things that leads me to believe that this one is authentic, no later writer would have thought to call it grand."

Dawn looked askance at Giles' wordplay on her name, but nodded in agreement anyway.

"And of course, '_the river of life'_ can only be the Nile," said Giles.

"It's interesting," I said, "how someone used as many of the words as they could to add false information to the last translation. And someone knew that Willow would be able to reconstruct the false document, and that by doing so we would be lulled into believing it. In fact, if Willow had used her darker power on the false scrap, we would have reconstructed the wrong one, as we did with the Synodeche spell, but we would have been more certain of the correctness of the prophecy. Of course, one might wonder about this translation too, I suppose. But if we've got it right this time, the bad guy knew it too."

"Yes," said Giles darkly, "someone was playing fast and loose to get us on a specific course of action. Someone who is well aware of our capabilities. I can't help but wonder why."

"First," I said, "lets get that Latin document authenticated, or dis-authenticated, if that's a word. Then, we might be able to turn the tables by letting our new slayer do the cruciamentium after all, except we'll just fake the whole thing and see if anyone crawls out of the shadows. We'll have to bring her in on the whole thing, of course. We need to bring her up to speed anyway if we are to succeed in regaining her trust—I mean gaining it in the first place."

"Good idea, good point."

--- ---

A messenger came to get our now suspect document and take it to a specialist in LA.

"And how goes the _vampyre_ hunting in the city of _sin_ my glorious _warriors_ of the _light_?" exclaimed the nerdiest little dweeb I'd ever met. Or maybe he was the dweebiest little nerd.

"Oh hell," said Xander, "Andrew, what the hell are you doing here? I thought we'd ditched you Cleveland."

"I answered Willow's call to duty friend Xander. I am off on a glorious quest with this sacred document which I will guard with my life as I escort it to a denizen of un-sacred scholarship for authentication."

"Well no, Andrew," said Dawn, "we're actually pretty sure it's a fake and somebody tried to trick us into doing something nasty. We want to know about this, but you don't have to die for it."

"_I_ wouldn't mind if he did," mumbled somebody who shall remain unnamed.

"Oh," said Andrew, "then here are some baked goods, and I'll pop this into a plain brown envelope and be off."

I was hungry so I looked in the box. It contained a half-dozen of the most delicious looking croissant sandwiches I had ever seen along with some luscious-looking cherry tarts. I grabbed one and gobbled it down. I looked to grab another but they were all gone already. No wonder they kept Andrew around.

--- ---

Andrew called the next day, he summarized the report over the speaker phone, "So my faithful warriors, here's the scoop from the oracle of documents: the paper is fifteen hundred years old, at least. But the ink is a custom mix of Sumi ink. It was made in Japan within the last few years, probably for an _anime_ studio, I bet."

"So," said Xander, "this is a complete fake, just as my wife suspected." He smiled at me.

"Thank you Andrew," I said and hung up. "Now, let's go talk to Vala Klein. Uh, where is she anyway?"

"Oh," said Buffy, "after I talked to her for awhile, I got her a nice room on the Council's credit card, and gave her some mad money for shopping and food. She wanted to gamble, but she's too young."

"So she could've wandered off and no one would be the wiser?"

"Well, no," said Buffy, "Willow put a little spell on her to keep nearby. Nothing major, just an increased desire to stick around and see what happens. It just played on a Slayer's natural curiosity."

It turned out that she cleaned up nice. When I had last seen her, she was wet and bedraggled and she'll probably remember me zapping her with my Taser. So when she noticed I was in the room she immediately came on all slayery at me. Very intimidating. But Buffy stepped in front of me and said, "Hey Vala, we finally are making progress and wonder if you would like to help us?"

"Yeah, sure, but that bitch isn't gonna zap me again!"

"Ah, no," I said nervously, "that was for your own good you know, so you wouldn't attack me, or us, now that you understand the situation, it won't be necessary to use the Taser anymore. And I should point out that I am completely ordinary, not a slayer. And besides, you almost staked me back in that alley!"

"Yeah, when you zapped me I wish I had."

"Oh, gosh, well, what happened to that whole _'We don't stake humans'_ thing?"

"I could make an exception in your case," she told me with major bad attitude. _Damn Veronica, you really have to try harder to make friends,_ I thought.

--- ---

I said to Giles, "I'm beginning to think that someone is primarily attacking you guys, and the attack on me was just a little side benefit for whoever is masterminding this plot, or possibly a distraction, or both. In the meantime, there are still some loose ends lying around; we need to gather more evidence."

"Er, and would those be?" he asked.

"The first one is Duncan Kane. The Fitzpatrick's did something to him for a reason. The one thing we need, and, uh, to do next is get him to give us an accurate description of older woman he was forced to to have intercourse with to."

"Hey Veronica, whenever you talk about Duncan and sex your grammar goes to hell. Did you know that?" asked Dawn.

"Yes," I said grimly, "I knew that. Now, unless we want to run the risk of being arrested for being accessories after the fact to a kidnapping, we can't ask a police sketch artist for help. But I just happen to have a sketch art program with me, but it needs someone with more artistic skills than I have to use it effectively. Also, someone who can sooth the subject, which wouldn't be me. Any ideas?'

"Yeah," said Willow, "Kennedy went to art school, before becoming a Slayer."

So, Kennedy spent a couple of hours getting an artist's representation of the woman with Duncan. When she came back with it, we all looked and Giles said, "She looks vaguely familiar. Anyone else?"

Buffy looked at it and frowned deeply, "I ought to know who that is, she is familiar, but I can't place it."

Willow came out of the bathroom and glanced at the picture, "Hey, where'd you get the picture of Mrs. Madison?"

"Who?"

"Catherine Madison, Amy's mom, you remember her don't you? _Heil_ mom? The wicked witch of the Sunnydale Cheerleading Squad?"

Giles' and Buffy's jaws dropped. Giles said, "Of course!"

Buffy said, "But she's dead, isn't she?"

"Umm," hummed Giles, "we didn't actually see her die, she just sent herself someplace spectacularly unpleasant."

"Oh yeah, she said something about appealing to Korshack."

"Korshack? From the TV show?"

"What TV show?"

"Korshack is a surprisingly common name used in any number of movies and TV shows and movies," said Giles, much to everyone's surprise, "none of which are relevant to this discussion."

"Giles, how did you, of all people, know that?"

"Well, er, um, there was a time in my life when I had more spare time. But the demon she was calling was, I believe, _Coure-chacke_, a particularly odious creature. Catherine Madison probably trapped herself in some local dimensional pocket, and she may have been released when we dropped Sunnydale into the hellmouth."

"Now you're just guessing, Giles," said Willow.

"Yes. But it's an educated guess made all the more believable by the evidence of Mrs. Madison's apparent survival. Another possibility is that some demon released her for a purpose – on the whole, I prefer the former."

"The question remains," I interjected, "what was Catherine Madison, assuming that's her, doing with the Fitzpatrick's? How and when did she join them?"

"And your ex-boyfriend, Duncan Kane, slept with Amy's mom? Ewww!" said Dawn, going right to the salient point.

Xander glanced at the picture again and said, "Yep, she's a MILF all right."

"I just know I'm going to regret this," Giles murmured, "but what is a Milph?"

"Em, eye, el, ef, MILF, the phrase was made popular in that movie that Trina Echolls was in, _American Donut_. Did you not see it?"

"Er no, Xander, I missed what I am sure was a masterpiece of subtle wit and emotional depth," Giles said with understated sarcasm.

"Not so much, Giles, MILF stands for: M_others I'd Like to Fuck_."

"Eww, eww, eww," Willow, Dawn and I exclaimed in chorus, although I'm certain all of us knew it already.

"Is that the one about the guy who has sexual intercourse with a donut?" someone asked.

"Yeah, an apple jelly filled donut," replied Dawn.

"And then one of his friends takes a humongous bite out the donut and gets this really funny expression and then spits it out all over the bed--"

Giles interrupted and said, "Please stop, now. Even though the film may well be the very apotheosis of American culture, perhaps we should get back to finding out who's trying to kill us."

"Who's Amy?" I asked.

When they told me about her powerful witchiness, and her even more powerful unreconstructed witch of a mother, a lot of things started to click into place. My decision tree was losing some branches. One of the biggest things left was to find out who was in the Fitzpatrick's room and got turned into paste. "Guys, we have to get a copy of the coroner's report from the CSI people. Any ideas?"

--- ---

Willow and I walked into the CSI building that evening. Willow had done some locater spells and we knew that the boss, Gil Grissom, was in the autopsy room, and, as far as we could tell, would be occupied for some time. Catherine Willows greeted us without any discernible friendliness, "Do you girls need anything?"

"Yes," I answered politely, "we wondered if Buffy Summers and I need to stay in town much longer, classes start for me next week, and Buffy has business elsewhere."

That nice Nick Stokes wandered by and said, "Miss Mars, hi, how've you been? Who's your friend?"

"This is Willow Rosenberg. We just wanted to talk to your boss, ask him a question about the Fitzpatrick's case, you know, that we're all involved in 'cuz he attacked us and Buffy captured him." I paused in thought for a moment and came to the calculated conclusion that I would get more from Nick Stokes if I didn't correct his error about my marital status, at least not yet.

Willow turned away and silently mouthed a few words in some language other than English, and surreptitiously waved some finely ground herbs into the air. Catherine Willows sneezed and frowned slightly for a moment and said, "Oh, you can wait in Grissom's office."

Willow sat at the computer and casually put her jacket down, partially covering the keyboard. She snaked a plug out from her purse and popped it into a convenient USB port, hidden under her coat. She then spread her fingers above the keyboard and for a few moments there was a mysterious glow between her fingers and the keys. Then she sat back in the chair with a self-satisfied grin. While we waited, the portable DVD burner in Willow's purse whirred away, copying files.

Ten minutes later, Willow unplugged her drive and sat back in the chair, apparently engaged in rummaging through her purse to the casual observer. Just then, Gil Grissom walked in, his expression dark.

"What are you people doing in my office?"

Willow whispered some more incantations and Grissom's expression smoothed a little. She said, "Oh, Catherine Willows asked us to wait for you here."

He accepted that as if it were perfectly normal to park suspects in his office. _Wow_, I thought, _a little magic can be really convenient_.

I went into my prepared spiel about Buffy. He thought that was normal too, and told us that he would like us all to stay one more week, and then we could go. We agreed, since that fit our plans.

--- ---

"Damn Willow," I remarked as we walked down the front steps, "that was easy. When I think of all the trouble I've gone through in the past to liberate evidence from the Vice-Principal's office or the Neptune Sheriff's department..."

"Yeah, a little too easy," she replied darkly, "not only is it easy to start depending on magic everyday, that kind of magic can easily backfire. I just allowed their natural politeness to overcome trained suspicions; then I betrayed their innate good nature by stealing information. I'm not sure if I'm basically a good person or a despicable creature on her way to eternal damnation — it's an invisibly fine line."

"Well, whatever you did, it worked. Now lets find a computer. I'm very anxious to figure this out," I said, not really paying attention to Willow's worry, after all, isn't it all peachy if it's for good cause? Can the ends ever justify the means? _Sure they can_, I thought, _unless not, _I answered myself sourly.

--- ---

Well, that was a surprise. I looked up and said to Giles and Xander, patiently waiting for me and Willow to patiently ferret out the needed info, "The spell ingredients included C-4 explosive. I doubt our dead witch knew that. And the victim? It wasn't Molly Fitzpatrick, in fact she wasn't a Fitzpatrick at all."

Buffy asked if we knew any of the police detectives theories. I said, "Yeah, some ideas are floating around in their notes, but I don't see anything that fits all the evidence. Of course, they don't have all the facts that we have—for one thing they don't realize that magic is real. This is causing a huge blind spot in their thinking."

"Well," said Willow, "if that wasn't a Fitzpatrick, then I suppose it had to be Catherine Madison. Or Amy. Really, it shouldn't be such a surprise that the old witch pissed off the Fighting Fitzpatricks. They're pretty easy to anger and Catherine riled almost everyone she met."

"Oh, look here!" I said while making frantic hand-motions to get Giles attention, "according to this report, the police succeeded in tracing the explosive back to the demolition company that blew up the old stadium in Neptune. Makes sense, really, Danny Boyd worked there. He probably stole the C-4."

Giles asked, "So Veronica, do you have any theories that account for all this?"

"Yes, but there are still too many loose ends for me to go public yet."

"You're not going public, you're just bouncing ideas off your friends."

"Not yet."

"At least give us a summary."

"Not until we have investigated Catherine Madison's family tree. Depending on what we find, I'll finally be ready."

--- ---

"Hey Xander," I said, barely able to contain my excitement, "I learned a new word today."

"Yeah?" he asked, not notably impressed.

"Retrocopulate."

"And what does—oh wait, I can decipher the copulate part, but retro? What's that, doing it the old-fashioned way?"

He easily got the copulate part of the word because we were both naked. We were lying on the bed studying each other. This was an activity that gave both of us many hours of enjoyment and showed no signs of becoming old anytime soon.

"It means 'doggy style'. You know, rear entry."

His face lit up, "Ahhh! I should've known."

"It's one my favorite positions."

"I knowVeronica. Of course, I've come to the realization you favor all positions."

I smiled at him.

He said, "Now _that's_ a sexy smile!"

"Xander," I said with a little exasperation in my voice, "_all_ smiles are sexy when we're naked."

"Hmmm," he answered, "what's that, _Veronica's Law?_"

"Unless you're really old or ugly or something," I mused.

Xander laughed at me, "Just when I get used to your astonishing maturity, you remind me that you're still a teenager."

I bristled, "Hey, I'll be nineteen in a few weeks!"

"And an old lady soon after."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I jumped on top of him. It didn't take long before neither of us was capable of forming complete sentences.

--- ---

Next: _Veronica Trims her Decision Tree_


	9. Chapter 9

.

Mars on the Cusp of Vegas

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_**Chapter 9**_

_Veronica Tries to Trim her Decision Tree_

_A/N: Warning! Danger Will Robinson, foul language ahead! Some quotes from one of Veronica's favorite movies will knock the socks off your grandma, so be warned._

.

-August 2006-

I sat down at one of those large corner booths they have down in the coffee shop. Mac, Buffy, Dawn and Willow were already there, having a major discussion about, what else, clothes. Now I am just as shallow as the rest of my sisters when it comes to my body – both the covering and the emphasizing are subjects near and dear. But still, now? Now, while the the end of the world stares us in the face, they're worried about fashion? About how much should be spent for outfits that might only be worn a half-dozen times? Should we insist on genuine silk for a fleeting style? Just what do I plan to wear to the apocalypse anyway?

Well dear reader, I have to admit on joining the discussion, wholeheartedly. It was a way for all of us to relax, to gain a little ease in the face of death. Even Mac, that paragon of anti-fashion, got into the discussion, although from an outlandish perspective. Buffy, Dawn and I were practically soul-mates in the clothing department – as were Willow and Mac in their own little unfashionable offshoot. But we all joined in on a heated argument over the best materials to use in bra construction; naturally that's when Xander showed up and sat down next to me. He was disconcerted, to say the least, when he realized what we talking about. I could see that he was torn – he thought about leaving, but he liked sitting next to me. All of us were aware of Xander's discomfort and after a few comments which were intended to make him blush, if at all possible, we relented. After all, we should at least _try_ to stop the world from ending.

Unfortunately, my own reactions betrayed my best intentions. While everyone else came up with tactical plans and variations to enemy action, I was growing ever more aware of Xander's leg touching my leg. Even through two layers of cloth, the temperature of the area of contact was rising. I was ever more aware of his arm against my shoulder. His male aroma whispered into my nose in a way that caused my brain to short-circuit. I could feel my heart rate increasing and my breathing got quicker and quicker. We kind of pushed together harder. I was suddenly worried about whether or not others would notice my chest rising and falling inappropriately. I had this sudden vision of myself on the cover of a bodice-ripper, complete with heaving bosom. I took Xand's left hand in my right hand and ran my fingers over his work-hardened calluses. I couldn't help but remember the feel of his roughened hands around my naked waist. I very nearly groaned out loud.

"Veronica! Veronica!" said Willow.

"Huh? What?" I asked stupidly, "I'm sorry Willow, what did I miss?"

* * *

I read the paper while waiting for Xander to get back. That, plus I was waiting for a few phone calls to bear fruit. Hmm, it seems a new annex to a big casino was having foundation problems. The building was sinking, according to the article in the _Deseret News_, but only on one side. There were lawsuits and accusations flying back and forth among the general contractor, the subcontractors, the engineers, and of course the architect, and anyone else involved in the construction. But, in typical Vegas fashion, the owners planned to demolish the whole structure and replace it, even though the construction was only completed six months ago. All because one side of the building sunk a few inches? They couldn't fix that? Jack it up and pump concrete under it or something? Strange what an excess of money does to people.

* * *

After two days apart Xander and I finally managed to get together in the bedroom. "Oh my god," I said, "a whole night free for sex. Come on!" I didn't have to tell Xander twice, we undressed each other and fell into bed, after a detour through the _holo-shower_. Now I'm not going into any detail here, 'cause it's really none of your business, but our lovemaking was astonishingly violent that night. Two days, and more importantly, two nights, apart had made us madly horny. So much so that I think I screamed loudly at the climax. Xander's groans were awfully loud too.

Afterwards we watched a movie, _The Big Leibowski_. Besides being one of my favorite movies, apparently it's one of Xander's too. We really got into it and started reciting the dialog together. I mouthed along with bikini-clad Tara Reid on the TV: "_I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars!_"

TV Brandt: "_Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Wonderful woman. We're all, we're all very fond of her. Very free-spirited._"

Me and TV Tara again: "_Brandt can't watch though, or he has to pay a hundred_."

TV Brandt (nervously): "_Ah ha ha. That's marvelous_."

Xander, simultaneously with The Dude: "_Uh, I'm just gonna go find a cash machine_."

Xander and I looked at each other and collapsed laughing with our arms around each other. I suppose it might not be that funny when judged from a sober out-of-context viewpoint, but we thought it was the height of hilarity. Of course, it might make a difference that we had just had several hours of mad lovemaking.

A few moments later I noticed Xander was looking a little more intently at Tara Reid than seemed warranted by the plot. I studied her, then I looked at my body. After the movie I looked at my chest with a frown. "So what do you think Xand? Should I get my breasts enlarged?"

"What? No!"

I frowned at Xander. "That's a little vehement, don'tcha think? I mean, it's my body."

"Sorry, look, do what you want, but if you want my opinion, and you did ask, I think you are absolutely perfect the way you are. You don't need any kind of augmentation, take my word for it – I'm nearly a world-class expert when it comes to beautiful breasts. Surely my opinion counts for something, doesn't it? I mean, there isn't anyone else in the world who is privileged to fondle your tits, is there?"

I chuckled, "No dear husband, you're the only one. But I was just wondering because Danny Boyd thought I should get the operation and it kind of bothers me once in while."

"What the hell, Veronica! What does Danny Boyd have to do with it? I didn't know he was intimate enough with you to make comments like that!"

"He wasn't, that was nearly the first thing he said to me the first time we met – right after he opened his front door, in fact."

"Shit! He's an even bigger asshole than I thought!"

"Well, he's in jail where he belongs, and I doubt that he'll be getting out any time soon. So forget him."

"All right, forgotten."

"I need food now, how about you?"

"Room service?"

"How about a quick snack? I'll just zip out to the vending machines down the hall."

Xander nodded.

I threw on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt and went out. I was startled to find most everyone else still awake in the living room, and staring at me with round eyes. _Oh hell!_, I thought, _they all look like they've been listening to me and Xander for the last two hours._ How am I going to live this down?

* * *

"Wow, Xand, we haven't even explored the other wing of this bathroom," I said.

"Exaggerating much?"

"Just a tad. But there's this Olympic size heart-shaped bathtub that we haven't even tried out."

I drew a bath and dropped some soap in it. It didn't take much to entice Xander to join me. We sat side by side, each in a separate lobe of the tub. Xander asked, "What's the purpose of all these bubbles again?"

"Ohhhh, it's all so romantic, slippery, and all bubbly!"

"But I can't see your body."

"Nooo, but you can feel, and touch, and stroke..."

* * *

The next morning, bright and early, we down for breakfast.

"So Veronica," asked Willow, "what was up with the sound effects coming from your suite last night? You and Xand really got down with the snugglies?"

"Oh yeah, Xander found my G-spot last night, it was..." Willow looked at me with a odd suffused expression. "TMI?"

"Yeppers. How about some bacon and eggs?" Everyone joined us and we all got down to the serious business of eating and light conversation. No sex talk – it's possible that I'm getting a one-track mind because everything I wanted to do that morning involved wrapping my naked legs around naked Xander. I mentally shook myself, _Get your mind in the game Veronica!_ I thought angrily, _the end of the world may be upon us and all you want to do is fuck around with Xand. Something has to change._

After breakfast, we retired to our suite for a conference.

Willow started, "They've charged Danny Boyd with stealing explosives, not murder though, because they couldn't connect him with anything else here in Vegas. Still, on the explosives charge alone he should get ten years in prison, the Feds really don't like people who steal TNT."

"Well," I said trenchantly, "it's better than getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick, but not by much." I paused, expecting at least a few low chuckles, but I heard nothing but complete silence followed by a pregnant pause. I looked up and the first thing I noticed was Xander's glass eye. Oh shit! I'm such an idiot! I completely forgot about Xander's eye! God, I'm such a...

Xander broke the silence, "Hey, that's still funny." And he laughed! Didn't offset the fact that I felt like a complete and total buttheaded jerk with the IQ of a toad.

"Xander! Oh my god, I didn't think, I didn't mean to..." I would have said more but he grabbed me and planted a big ol' kiss on my lips. That made feel a little, a tiny, a nanobit better.

"Veronica," he whispered in my ear, "it just means you're not obsessing over my eye socket. That's a _good_ thing, don't be upset."

That made me feel a lot better.

"So anyway," said Mac, "I've got a bunch of messages here from your man Weidman. But they're encrypted."

"Well how dare Weidman encrypt his messages! How the hell am I supposed to know what he's thinking when I can't intercept his most private communications?" I asked, outraged, and then added "cryptography ought to be illegal!"

Mac snorted in reply, "When cryptography is outlawed, only outlaws will _vpqqo vsyro mvpfr_. Still, he's using a simple code, I think I will be able to decipher it. Of course, that low level of encryption probably means it isn't a very important message, if he'd used PGP we'd be shit out of luck."

"Okay, let us know when it's ready. So, what's next?" I said.

Xander replied, "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout?"

I said, "No, no, the actual quote is: 'When in danger or in doubt, port your helm and come about.' It dates from back in the days of sail."

Giles polished his glasses and put them back on. He looked at each of us in succession, skipping no one. "Xander, Veronica" he said, "don't be flippant. Just because we have averted multiple large-scale disasters in the past is no reason to become overconfident now. Please remember that one of the most skilled swordsman in Europe was defeated by a beginner."

"Huh?" I spoke up, "what does swordsmanship have to do with it?"

"Nothing," said Willow in an aside to me, "it's a metaphor. We can't be overconfident, I mean we can be, but we shouldn't be, that is we have to be careful not to be because it would be bad to be overconfident."

I said, "No way am I overconfident, I'm shaking in my boots. I think you're all crazy if you think we can defeat this."

Everyone sat back and most reached for water or snacks. I picked up today's paper and started scanning headlines. Suddenly a name in the _Deseret News_ leaped off the page at me. I nearly jumped I was so surprised. Carlos Mercado. I read the article closely. The building that started to sink last week and was being demolished – it seems they paid particularly close attention to the foundation – naturally since lawyers were sharpening their claws – uh, pencils – over the lawsuits for faulty construction or engineering or both. So everyone was horrified (but not, I think, especially surprised) when they discovered a couple of dead bodies under the footings. One of the bodies was identified as the corpse of one Carlos Mercado, the son of a diplomat who had disappeared about a year and a half ago. Of course I knew exactly when he disappeared: a very short time after he murdered Amelia DeLongpre and extorted a quarter of a million bucks out of Kane Software. Oh shit, Clarence is going to be on the warpath after my supposed letter from her. Why does this happen to me? How the hell did I hit upon a little scam using Amelia's name just weeks before the corpse of her murdered murderer turned up? I hoped Clarence was confident that I would stay silent—perhaps a few bodyguards wouldn't be totally out of the question. And a conference with Clarence Weidman too, I think.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Mars on the Cusp of Vegas**

_**Part II: Mars in Retrograde**_

A Veronica Mars / BtVS Crossover

by

STFarnham

Lancer47

_A/N: This is going in a new direction, but eventually, the initial mystery will be solved._

_See chapter one for disclaimers._

**Chapter Ten**

_Veronica's Plans Gang Aft Agley_

_Retrograde: _

_Apparent backward motion of a planet through the zodiac. Sun and Moon are never retrograde. Viewed as a debility in Western Astrology._

June 2006:

What happened is, we failed. I don't mean that an apocalypse came or that we lost a fight or anything, I mean that we failed to solve the case. It's still hanging out there, the witch that died in the hotel room is still unknown, who killed her is unknown, why she was killed is unknown. Oh sure, I've got lot's of hypothesis, in fact I've got a pretty good idea of who died, just no conclusions that would be worth anything in court.

So the whole magical thing we were worried about just sort of evanescened into the ether. Willow and Giles are mystified as to why, and they are both worried about it all coming back some day, so we're all just waiting to see what's going to happen, watching the signs and portents, wondering, marking time, trying to prognosticate, and just plain enduring the wait. Someday this thing is going to come back, probably when we least expect it, and bite us on our collective asses, and we know it, but there isn't one damn thing we can do about it until something happens.

**Mars Rising 1**

_Rising: A planet is said to be rising, or ascending, when moving via the ascendant between the fourth and tenth cusps. _

December 2006:

"You all right Xand?" I asked. We were sitting in a lawyer's office in New York City. It was a very fine office, with woodwork cut from a now extinct tree species, a wood burning fireplace, a gorgeous rug probably sewn by third-world children who went blind after years of making tiny stitches; the whole situated on the corner of the fiftieth floor of a grand building overlooking the city and the Hudson river. This was the office of a man who commanded seven hundred and fifty dollars an hour for the fruits of his labors. Giles was with us, and some woman that I strongly suspected was a vengeance demon, and three complete strangers. We sat mostly silent while waiting for the lawyer.

Xander couldn't keep his eyes of the lawyer's desk, which pretty much was the center of attention in that room. I watched him as he followed the lines of the desk; I knew from past experience that he was trying to see how it was put together, endeavoring to understand the hidden joinery while inspecting the finish closely. It interested me only because it interested Xander. After watching him for a few minutes, I leaned back and studied the bookshelves. Someone, I forget who, said that if you analyze a man's library you can understand his thought processes, or at least get clue how he thinks. This library was all law books, but a lot of them were antique and surely out of date, or at least old-fashioned. Didn't really give me any unexpected insights.

Finally, on the precise stroke of two o'clock on the rather fine Seth Thomas mantle clock, a portly and distinguished man dressed in a suit that cost more than my car was worth, a snowy white custom-made cotton shirt, and a very fine silk tie, entered and sat behind his desk.

He spoke in deep measured tones, "I have been Anya Jenkin's personal attorney and confidant for many years, and it is with great personal sadness that we gather today for the final disposition of her affairs. I thank you for joining me in the reading of Anyanka Christina Emanuela Jenkins last will and testament. My assistant will pass out the full document with all amendments and codicils for everyone's convenient perusal after I read the major bequests.

"First, ten years ago Anya came to me and set up a charitable fund. The majority of her considerable wealth went to this fund, approximately sixty-five million dollars..."

Several of us, including me, gasped loudly.

"...which is to be distributed to a variety of charities and organizations. The board of directors of this trust includes myself, Dr. Rupert Giles, and Mr. Alexander LaVelle Harris. Our first board meeting will be next month and you will be sent instructions in due time. The remainder of her assets are to be distributed today, via her will."

He picked up the file again and said, "This is the summary; I shall read it to you:

"To my very close friend of many years, Halfrek, or her designated heirs, I leave my collection of Russian jewelery, including my Faberge Egg – if she can find where I hid it;

"To my former employer, Lord D'Hoffryn, I leave the shattered remains of my Power Center and my Chain of Office;

"To Liss Bectorananoon, my faithful Housekeeper of many decades, I leave a bequest of five hundred thousand dollars, a trust fund that pays two thousand dollars a month for the remainder of her life, and her certificate of emancipation;

"To Dr. Rupert Giles, for the purpose of supporting those who save the world, but only at Dr. Giles exclusive direction, I leave the sum of ten million dollars;

"Also to Rupert Giles, who taught me more than he knows, I leave a bequest of three hundred thousand dollars and my interest in the Magic Box, which includes a sizable insurance policy, for his personal use;

"To the City of Florence, Italy, in the region of Tuscany, I leave a bequest of ten thousand dollars, to be deposited in an interest bearing account and not touched for a period of two hundred years, after which the proceeds are to be used for the good of Tuscany's citizens."

The Attorney briefly put down the file and looked at us. "Anya told me that she owed the Medici family for introducing her to the miracle of compound interest over time, and that she felt, not guilt exactly, but a sense of responsibility for the downfall of the Medici family in the eighteenth century and this bequest was inspired by Benjamin Franklin and was intended to make amends to Italy. I really have no idea what she meant by any of that, but she said she had been reading history books that year."

After a short reflective pause, he continued to read from Anya's Will:

"To the only man in my considerable lifetime who loved me with all his heart, Alexander LaVelle Harris, who could induce multiple mad screaming orgasms," several of us in the audience got a little embarrassed but the lawyer didn't turn a hair, "and who deserves credit for preventing me from wreaking any more havoc on mankind, I leave the remainder of my assets, including my bank accounts, real estate, stock portfolio, and retirement accounts. Also, the contents of my safe deposit boxes: one at Chase Bank in Manhattan and the other at Credit Suisse in Berne, Switzerland. And Alexander, when you open those boxes, I request and require that you be accompanied by Willow Rosenberg or suitable substitute to be designated by you."

He looked at us and said, "Anyanka added a codicil, in her writing, and not seen by me before this reading. I can neither confirm nor deny her admonishments nor can I make any representations as to the veracity of her claims. I can only read it:

"_Should any person or creature attempt to overturn any of my wishes in my final will and testament, my spirit will become able and **more than willing** to unleash an act of **glorious** vengeance upon the heads of the perpetrators, one such act for each transgression, pursuant to the laws of Arashmahar, which laws are utterly beyond the ability of the United States of America or any other Earthly organization, group, person, creature or committee to supersede. Therefore, if you value your life, your sanity, your honor, and indeed, your very soul, **HEED MY WISHES**!"_

The Lawyer said with a bemused smile, "I would advise all of you that, should anyone choose to ignore the codicil, you may indeed be in serious peril, for Anyanka had astonishing resources." He put the sheet down on his pristine desk and looked at us with a particularly penetrating stare. "Do all of you understand your bequests? Are there any questions?"

If anyone had any questions, they weren't forthcoming. I had one question, but I wasn't about to blurt it out and appear to be a golddigger in front of that crowd. One of the men in back had come to life. He said, "I am the representative of Lord D'Hoffryn, if I may have the objects in question, I shall be on my way."

The Lawyer pointed to his assistant, standing attentively by the door, and the two left. The other stranger stood and said, "I am Special Agent Hawkins from the IRS enforcement division. I will be present when those safe deposit boxes are opened."

"Certainly," said the Lawyer. "If none of the rest of you have any further business, then I invite you to wait outside while I discuss details with Mr. Harris and his wife." Everyone else left, except Xander and me. Giles said he would meet us back at the hotel as he had errands. The lawyer deliberately opened the file on his desk again and pulled out three additional sheets of paper. "This," he said, "is a list of Anyanka's accounts. All the legal work has been done, these are now equally yours, Mr. and Mrs. Harris, according to the laws of the State of New York and California and the wishes of Mr. Harris. The grand total of the cash accounts is four hundred fifteen thousand dollars, approximately. The stock portfolio, as of ten AM this morning, is worth approximately three million, nine hundred thousand dollars. The real estate is more difficult to evaluate, but it is probably worth double the stock price, but of course it is not liquid. I believe Anyanka was making a joke when she referred to her retirement accounts because I am not aware of any such thing. And finally, I do not know what she has in her safe deposit boxes, nor why she requested your friend Willow Rosenberg to be present when you open them."

"Oh gosh Xander," I gushed, "what are going to live on now?"

* * *

**Mars Rising 2**

May 2010, Hearst College

Well, it's been awhile since I've made an entry in my journal – almost four years, wow, time flies! I'll try to catch you up a bit, right after my graduation. Yep, little ol' Veronica Mars-Harris got her degree in Criminology. Also in Economics. What's that you say? In four years I managed dual degrees? All the while solving cases and avoiding vampires and having crazy-mad sex with my husband in my spare time?

The answer, she said blushingly, is yes. It took some work I'll admit, but I did it. So, if you'll allow me to put my Wonder-Phone away for just a few minutes, I'm gonna go up on stage and collect my diploma.

* * *

There, got that done. Actually, with Dad, and Xander (of course!) and Buffy, Dawn, Willow; and Logan and what may surprise you most of all, an exonerated Duncan, all in the audience, clapping for me as hard as they could, I got a little emotional about it. And why not? That little piece of paper represented a lot of hard work. It was necessary though, because to get accepted into the FBI Academy right out of college one has to excel. The double degree on top of two summers of FBI internships will make it impossible for them to reject me.

* * *

Well, you can see why I'm not living at home. Well actually, you don't. You see, back when we got back from Las Vegas, just before the start of my Freshman year at Hearst College, we stayed at dad's place. The problem was immediately obvious to us, the walls there are _way_ thin. After dinner with dad and a few minutes of conversation, Xander and I yawned and explained we were exhausted. Then we made a beeline for the bedroom, stripped off our clothes and hopped into bed in record time, but our activity started the bed sloshing and the frame began squeaking ridiculously loud and we were immediately stymied. We just couldn't do it with my dad in the next room; I know it was silly, we were married! It's legal and expected and everything and it's not like my dad didn't know about sex – but...

So since we couldn't do anything physical and we weren't tired, we sat back and talked. "Xand," I asked, "there something that's been bothering me a little about our sex life."

Xander looked a little worried. "Uh, you don't have any complaints, do you?"

"No, of course not, how could you even think that?"

"So what's the problem?"

"Back in Vegas you made your infamous offhand remark about the _Anyanka-sutra_. Now I realize it was a play on words, but you really did write down what Anya taught you about sex – wait, she'd be blunter about it, she'd would have said she taught you about orgasms, right?"

"Heh, yeah, that's right."

"So why did you write it down? I mean, you don't take notes any more, do you? There isn't a _Veronica-sutra_ hidden under the mattress or anything, I hope."

"No, no. The reason was simple, Anya not only graded me on my performance, she gave me tests, like it was a college level seminar or something. She claimed that..."

Xander had to stop talking because I was laughing too hard.

When I finally got control of myself he continued, "She claimed that putting it on that level made it better for both of us. She made me ask her questions and test her skills, too, it wasn't one-sided. She really expected us to study sex the way insectologists study bugs, for instance. But I also think she just liked talking about sex almost as much as doing it."

"So why don't we...?"

"Because the doing is better than talking about it for us. And anyway, what more could there possibly be to know?"

"Not much, I'd guess, there can't be much more that I'd be interested in knowing," I said.

Xander said, "But there are some more esoteric things we haven't tried, but even Anya didn't ask for the razor-blade technique very often, and I never let her try it on me..."

"Wait, what? Razor blades? That sounds sick."

"It involves gently scraping the sharp edges over your partner's most tender and swollen parts. The idea being to stay absolutely still because, if you don't, you might get cut and bleed to death. It adds to the suspense somehow. But if you do it right there is absolutely no cutting of any kind, just gentle scraping."

"I don't like the sound of that one."

"Oh I agree with you, first, it's really dangerous – a sudden uncontrollable twitch or jerk could sever nerves and destroy ones sex life permanently, even if you didn't bleed to death. Second, it's cold, I really prefer warmer, more personal sex."

"Oh, good," I said faintly. "What does it take for someone to be jaded enough to want the razor blades?"

"A thousand years of missionary position would do the trick, I suppose."

The very next morning we went searching for an apartment and found a nice one at a good price. Then a year later, with our windfall from Anya in hand, we bought a luxury condo. Actually, as Xander's business partner, I went ahead and bought a whole building, remodeled it, and sold the individual condos, keeping the best one for us, which included an incredibly luxurious shower even better than the one in the Las Vegas honeymoon suite. My timing was good, I bought the building at a fire-sale price even though it was a seller's market at the time, and managed a good profit on the sale of individual condos. By the time the California real estate market started to crash, I only had two empty units left to sell and had already repaid all the loans and had a tidy profit, so I kept ownership of the two empties and rented them, one to the Watcher's Council, the other to my dad at a family discount. And if there were any iffy mortgages, it was the bank's problem, not mine.

* * *

**Malefic Mars**

_Malefic Planets: Planets generating difficult circumstances._

Xander grinned at me as he held up a large brown envelope, "I wonder what this could be?" he asked with a twinkle. I jumped up and grabbed for it.

He yanked it away and said, "Not so fast, first you've gotta kiss me!"

"Dammit Xander!" I yelled and jumped up to grab the envelope. He relented and let me have it. I ripped it open and started to smile in anticipation of getting accepted – after all, everything had been going my way for some time now – and read:

_ Dear Mrs. Veronica Mars-Harris:_

_ It is with regret that we cannot accept you for the FBI Academy this year, as our quotas have been filled._

_ Sincerely yours,_

...

My face fell, my smile got sucked into my teeth and I started to choke on my tongue. What the fuck! They wouldn't take me! "Xander!" I wailed, bursting into tears for the first time in years, "they don't want me! What am I gonna do now?"

He gathered me up in his arms and hugged me close. He whispered something soothing, and I suppose that helped a little. We collapsed onto the couch together and stayed that way for some time.

Later Xander called up his contact in the FBI, Special Agent Robertson, and said, "Hey, how ya doin Robertson? This is Xander Harris."

"Oh," Robertson replied unenthusiastically, "how are you Mr. Harris? What can I do for you?"

"Well, my wife – Veronica Mars-Harris – applied for the FBI Academy and we all expected her to be admitted, but they refused her. I wonder if you might nose around and find out why?"

"Qualifications?"

"Dual degrees in criminal justice and economics, an FBI internship a few years ago, and a qualified private investigator in the State of California with several high profile cases to her credit."

"Hmm, you do understand that more than 95% of _qualified_ applicants are rejected, there are many more people who want to be FBI agents than we have room for, so it's not anything personal when an applicant doesn't make it. And of course, I must point out that the FBI does not especially value experience as a _private _detective, we much prefer real police work in the applicant's background."

"I understand, but Veronica is very upset, she really thought she had a lock on it."

"Okay, I can ask if you want. But you know I can only find out the reason for her rejection, right? You know I can't apply any pressure to change their mind."

"Yeah, sure. That's all I'm expecting."

* * *

**Mars in Refranation**

_Refranation (Refrain): If two planets are applying to an aspect and one of them turns retrograde before the aspect culminates, it is said to refrain from the aspect, showing that the effect indicated by the aspect will not materialize._

It was just a few days later that Robertson called back. It seems that Special Agent Morris, that Xena-bitch Spiteful-Agent, whispered in a few ears and single-handedly put the kibosh on my application. Just because she thought I had something to do with kidnapping Duncan's own baby even though I was entirely innocent! What's worse, there wasn't anything I could do about it because nothing was written down anywhere. Agent Morris just didn't like me, and that's all it took to keep me out.

"On the other hand," Xander said, "there are more than ninety Federal agencies that have armed investigators and Special Agents."

"Oh yeah, but none of them are as good as the FBI."

"How about the Secret Service?"

"Oh, well, okay, yeah, they have a pretty good rep and they're even older than the FBI. But I wouldn't want to protect politicians I mostly loath; of course with my econ degree they'd stick me in the counterfeit money department. Going around arresting losers with copy machines doesn't sound all that exciting to me, even though it is important work I suppose."

Xander looked at the list he had pulled up on the net. "How about NOAA or EPA Special Agent?"

"National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?" I asked incredulously. "Environmental Protection Agency? They have Special Agents?"

"Yep, the EPA arrests polluters and NOAA protects the environment according to the Marine Mammal Act, very important work you know."

"Yeah. Right now I hate mammals."

"You _are_ a mammal, complete with fine mammalian characteristics."

"I especially hate bipedal mammals and quit staring at my chest, Xander – I'm not in the mood right now!"

"Okay, okay. Forget NOAA and EPA. So I guess Fish & Wildlife Special Agent or Park Service Law Enforcement is out, too. Should I even mention US Department of Agriculture agents? Not even, huh? How about DCIS?" At my questioning look he added, "Defense Criminal Investigation Agency."

"Don't you have to be in the military for that?"

"No, I don't think so. You have to be in the Army for Army CID, and the Air Force for AFOSI, although I think they have some civilian agents now, but DCIS is all civilians. Oh, here's another one, NCIS, they're civilians, too. Except for a few Marines for some reason."

"Oh yeah, I can just see myself weighing anchor and investigating salty dogs too drunk to find their way back to their ships."

"I don't think NCIS does that sort of thing – it says here they investigate major crimes like murder and terrorism. But I bet they investigate a lot more missing supplies and a lot fewer terrorists than they talk about."

"What else?"

"Well, there's DEA."

"Yuck, enforcing laws that are more harmful to society than the activity they make illegal? I don't think so."

"FDA Office of Criminal Investigations..."

"What the fuck!?"

"Seriously, the Food and Drug Administration has armed Special Agents with full police powers – they go through FLETC just like most other Federal Agents – they investigate criminal violations of Federal Law..."

"No, just no, Xander."

"Okay, how about ATF?"

"The firearms part could be cool, but I can't see myself as a revenuer, sneaking through the Appalachians looking for stills isn't my thing."

"You know," said Xander, "according to Wikipedia, ATF Special Agents have the broadest authority of any Federal Agency, and they do explosives now, too."

"Yeah, that's real attractive, get blown up on a government salary. You don't know this, but back in High School I met an ATF agent – he turned out to be a giant asshole that I got arrested which probably means that I'm blacklisted at the ATF, too. But worse than that, the ATF has really bad rep, the worst reputation of all Federal agencies, they have a long history of using entrapment and false evidence to generate investigations – I wouldn't work for them even if they _did_ want me. What else?"

"Really? You put an ATF agent in prison? Cool!"

"It didn't seem all that cool at the time. Anything else?"

"Homeland Security?"

"Jackbooted thugs working for an agency with a penchant for doing insanely stupid things in the name of national security. They're competing neck and neck with ATF in a race to the bottom, so that's a big no."

"Immigration Inspectors or Border Patrol."

"Fergettaboutit!"

"Diplomatic Security Service?"

"I don't really know much about them, but my impression is that they're mostly guards, not really something I'm qualified for."

"IRS Special Agents? Economics again."

"Oh jeez Xander, when you go to work for the IRS you instantly became a pariah, it's important work, I know, it's just not for me."

"U. S. Marshals Service?"

I considered it and answered, "Umm, they have a good reputation, they've certainly been around for a long time. But I can't see myself wearing a cowboy hat."

"They don't wear cowboy hats anymore, except for that one guy in Kentucky."

"Yeah well. I suppose chasing fugitives could be kind of exciting, still, the Marshal's Service doesn't really do much investigating, they're kind of a service provider to other agencies. I just don't think it'd be for me."

"You know Veronica, almost every state has an equivalent of the FBI, and in one of those you'd be a bigger fish in a smaller pond – like the CBI here in California."

"That's a strong possibility, I'll have to think about it."

"How about Postal Service Investigators? Probably not much of a future there and I don't suppose they're hiring these days, okay, forget that. Railroad police? I'm joking, sorry. But seriously, how about CIA, DIA, or NSA?"

"You think I'd make a good spy? Somehow I doubt it. Besides, I think you have to be a math major to get on at NSA. And CIA are all weaselly, not for me I think." I sighed, "I don't know, maybe I'll become a Watcher."

"Oh god Veronica! You don't want to do that, do you?"

"Why not?"

"It's too secretive. You'd never get recognition outside of the Council, ever. And if you did, it'd be of the nutball variety. Trust me, you don't want that."

"Well, before I decide, let's sort these different agencies, maybe I could apply to two or three of them, see what happens anyway."

* * *

**Mars Rising 3**

Well, to make a long story shorter, I sent out applications to six Federal and State agencies, and was accepted to two of them. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do, researched them, and finally, with worry about what I was doing, accepted the invitation to join NCIS. After getting my TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information), and three months of agent training at FLETC – that's the _Federal Law Enforcement Training Center_ to you civilians – and another two months of specialized NCIS training, I was a probationary Special Agent of the NCIS, authorized to carry a badge and a gun. It wasn't the FBI (quiet sigh), but in some ways it was better. For one thing, I was one of about a thousand agents instead of one of more than thirteen thousand. That right there was a major plus. For another, there was a good chance that sooner or later I would be assigned to San Diego, just an hour away from Neptune. And now I could now exchange official communications with Sheriff dad of Neptune – kind of cool, really.

There was one other thing that set me apart from all other Special Agents in the Federal Government: I was – potentially – the liaison between the ISWC and the USG. But, if I ever activate that particular option, it could derail everything I had worked for. On the other hand, maybe it would make me more influential than I had anticipated. Well, we shall see, won't we?

* * *

I hear you asking, 'Wait, back up: Sheriff Dad of Neptune?' Well, what happened back at that horrible election against Vinnie Van Lowe, is: we lost. Vinnie won by by less than fifty votes, there was a recount, and he still won but by only thirty votes. So Dad graciously bowed out and went back to the private sector. But, wouldn't you know it, it was only three months later that the FBI swooped in and arrested Vinnie! They'd been investigating him for some time, then after he got elected a certain anonymous person sent some amazingly incriminating evidence to the FBI. It wasn't me, really, well not publicly anyway – I may have contributed the envelope, a couple of stamps and a photo or two, and, well, possibly a copy of a most _fascinating_ ledger which entirely by accident came into my possession which I'm sure Vinnie had _never_ intended to be seen by anyone with a badge. The fact that I was kinda sorta breaking and entering at the time I happened to come across it and by accident run it through a copier is something the FBI never needs to know. So Vinnie Van Lowe and lower was facing serious prison time and was forced to resign from the sheriff's department and spend his rapidly dwindling assets on lawyers, which couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.

So finally, the town council asked Dad to come back, there was yet another special election, and this time he won handily and decisively. Of course it helped that by then all that stuff about the prosecutor going after dad had gone gurgling down the drain, and many of the wealthier families in Neptune got behind him. The Kanes were especially helpful.

My NCIS career was going well, I had a number of successfully concluded cases under my belt, including a few high-profile cases. I had advanced from probie and was now a full-fledged special agent with my very own cubicle. Higher-ups were beginning to look at me as an up and coming agent, someone to be watched, someone who was going places. And then, one day, I got a call from Giles. He wants me to activate my Watcher's Council liaison status. Crap.

* * *

**TBC**

_Will Veronica be able to keep the dark side from affecting her career at NCIS? What do you think?_


End file.
